Sometime over the next few days—nobody will ever know exactly when—their attempt to notch a first ascent of the 4,000-foot route ended in disaster when the climbers were engulfed by a massive avalanche. A search proved futile; the snow was so deep, and the weather so threatening, that the bodies weren't recovered until early summer.

Though the fatal slide took place three decades ago, the accident still stands among the worst in American mountaineering history—and highlights an abiding theme in backcountry adventure. "The fact that those promising young men died on the mountain leaves people asking whether they took unnecessary risks," says writer McKay Jenkins, whose gripping investigation of the incident, "And None Came Back," kicks off this month's special report on the lore, science, and grim fascination of avalanches (page 40).

Jenkins, a former staff writer for the Atlanta Constitution who now teaches nonfiction writing at the University of Delaware, came upon the story in 1998, when his wife talked him into attending a slide show on avalanche safety during a backcountry ski trip in Glacier National Park. There he met Bob Frauson, a 76-year-old ranger who recounted his experience as chief of the extensive Mount Cleveland rescue effort. "I'd always wanted to write about the backcountry. It was just a matter of finding the right narrative. When I met Frauson, I knew I had."

Two years of sleuthing resulted in the book The White Death, published in February by Random House, from which his article is excerpted. But Jenkins, who also edited last month's Vintage release of The Peter Matthiessen Reader, prefers to leave some questions unanswered. "It's tempting to try to come to some kind of conclusion," he says, "but everything I've uncovered is still conjecture. I'd rather readers unravel the mystery for themselves."

"It stripped me of all my equipment and opened my eyes to the dark side of snow," recalls writer David Goodman of an avalanche that left him shaken but unscathed on New Hampshire's Mount Washington in 1997. The veteran skier and writer (his latest book, Fault Lines: Journeys into the New South Africa, was published last spring by the University of California Press) continued his wilderness education when he traveled to Utah to report on the complex science of avalanche prediction for "When the Mountain Falls" (page 52). Doug Peacock's mission—"to preserve wild things and wild places"—means covering a lot of territory. The writer and conservationist is currently juggling a save-the-rainforest campaign in British Columbia, a jaguar survey along the Mexico border, and a book project focusing on Arizona's Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge. Most recently, he teamed up with archaeologists near his Livingston, Montana, home to research a burial site that may upend theories of how humans arrived in America. "Archaeology is exactly like wilderness," says Peacock, who reports on his experience in "The Voices of Bones" (page 62). "There's endless potential for exploration and discovery." Photographer Raymond Meeks shot Doug Peacock and his archaeologist friends as they dug for clues about the 11,000-year-old skeleton of a child found not far from Meeks's home in Montana's Bitterroot Valley. He moved from Ohio to Montana last summer "because it seemed like a good professional opportunity," says Meeks, who also shoots for The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, and Orion. "And so far, so good."

A fanatical surfer, longtime correspondent Bucky McMahon has traveled from Puerto Rico (where he spent two years riding waves at the legendary Rincon break) to Hawaii, Costa Rica, and—on certain stormy fall days—the hurricane-lashed swells of his home state. Most recently, the Florida resident traveled to Tobago to sample the waves, trails, and reefs of the uncrowded Caribbean isle ("In Tobago, It's All Good," page 78). "Tobago has one well-known surf break called Mount Irvine," he says. "There are probably others, but the locals are keeping their mouths shut." "I don't like cold and ice," admits Kentucky native Steve Kemper, "unless it's little cubes clinking in my bourbon." Nonetheless, the seasoned journalist—who has traveled in South America and Africa for Smithsonian and National Geographic Explorer—ventured north from his Connecticut home to cover the bone-chilling World Iceboating Championships outside Montreal last February ("A Screaming Comes Across the Ice," page 72). "Careening along on the ice was a lot of fun," admits Kemper, "but this is still a sport I'd rather watch on TV." Outside correspondent Jonathan Hanson spends three to five months a year in the field as a naturalist, photographer, and diehard outdoors enthusiast. Author of an adventure guide to the world's best sea-kayaking trips, to be published later this year by W. W. Norton, the Portal, Arizona, resident tested six of the latest, greatest cameras for Review on page 89.