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Hiker Films Massive Glacier Collapse in Kyrgyzstan

avalanche video tian shan(Photo/screen capture courtesy Harry Shimmin)
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If you have avalanche footie more epic than this, we want to see it. (But we doubt you do.)

Generally, if you experience a close enough encounter with an avalanche to film it from inside, you’re not filming — you’re doing whatever you can to get out of it alive.

For one hiker in Kyrgyzstan’s Tian Shan Mountains, the best chance at safety meant staying put. Keeping the camera rolling and the angle stable appears to have come naturally.

Harry Shimmin posted the most radical avalanche footage we’ve ever seen over the weekend. On a guided tour of the Tian Shan, his group of 10 hikers “heard the sound of deep ice cracking” above.

Soon a massive cloud of ice, rock, and snow began cascading from a nearby glacier. According to Shimmin, he took stock of his surroundings and realized the safest thing he could do was stay where he was.

The resulting images speak for themselves, and Shimmin’s report fills in the rest of the details. Spoiler alert: No one died, but the group’s margin for survival was only a few minutes wide. Watch it here.

 

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A post shared by Harry Shimmin (@harryshimmin)

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