"Just when I get into the machine, I just manage to sit in the seat and then the body of the excavator fills with slush and presses me against the window and then presses the whole machine off the road into the valley."

The upper mountain at Eaglecrest Ski Area in Juneau was closed on Friday following a large avalanche Thursday morning. No one was hurt.

An extreme winter rainstorm in New Zealand triggered one of the largest avalanche cycles observed in decades, raising questions about the risk of more hazardous events under climate change.