The ravine down which the avalanches fall is that of Péquère, and it was not snow and small stuff only that was brought down, but huge masses of rock.
It takes its name from the avalanches (raillères) that have made their pathway down the mountain side above it, and have left their white and ghastly scars on the rocks, and heaped wreckage below.
The road ascends steeply past slate quarries that send down their avalanches of grey refuse over the base of the hill surmounted by the donjon of Gélos.
The forests had been cut down, and free course given to the avalanches to fall into the valley and cover all with stones and mud.
Particularly may be mentioned the number of avalanches that thunder into Death Trap daily and the exhibit of semi-circular markings, known as "Forbes dirt bands" seen on the body of the ice opposite the junction with the Lefroy glacier.
Small glaciers hanging from cliffs may send down avalanches of ice which combine to make a lower glacier, the masses being welded together once more.
It is wise to make the traverse of this part of the glacier during the early morning hours before avalanches begin to fall.
It flows in a narrow channel between the precipitous sides of the two mountains named, which is known as the death Trap, owing to the number of avalanches that are precipitated from side to side directly across its bed.
It is customary to leave the Grands Mulets for the ascent to the summit soon after midnight, in order to get over the immense snow slopes before the action of the sun has loosened the avalanches and weakened the crevasse bridges.
All the neighbouring similar gullies discharged such groups of mud avalanches during that period of the year.
It notes the path of avalanches and the signs of falling stones.
Their walls are not silent as in the Central Andes, nor thundered over by continual avalanches like those of the upper Baltoro.
But in fine summer weather the avalanches have all fallen.
Imposing precipices rise around them, and in fact feed them with showers of avalanches on active days.
Certain great spring avalanchescome down with remarkable regularity in particular places, one every year.
Small avalanches of snow fall with a cat-like, velvety movement, more of a flowing than a fall.
In the theatrical stage mud avalanchesare likewise common.
Over a hundred little avalanchescrossed the road within a couple of hours.
Mud avalanches are rare now in the Alps, and are only caused by some exceptional event, such as the bursting of a glacier lake.
After the avalanches have fallen, steady melting does the rest.
They fall indeed all the year round, chiefly at high levels, but it is only in the spring that the great avalanches get adrift.
We saw three enormous avalanches of this sort pass down the same gully in rapid succession, and, after we had gone by, others followed.
Though the number of disasters of this kind from avalanches may be counted upon one's fingers, trouble from high wind is always an imminent possibility.
From the high Alps came word that the grip of the frost had paralysed the avalanches for the moment, and that rapid progress was being made in opening up the roads for traffic.
They were overtaken by many heavy trials in the course of centuries: at one time it was a fire, driven by the fierce winds, which ravaged their homestead; at another time, avalanches annihilated the traces of their industry.
As often as the earthquake rocked their bases it loosened from near their summits wild avalanches of gold that swept down their flaming slopes with unthinkable tumult.
And in the swift downward surge of the glacial avalanches Annadoah saw tribes wiped from existence and villages swept into the sun-litten sea.
Twice he heard a distant crash and rumble, heavy as thunder, and he knew that somewhere along the cliffs avalanches were slipping.
There were times when he imagined the valley was as silent as the desert night, and other times when he imagined he heard the thundering roll of avalanches and the tramp of armies.
Why sleep the idle Avalanches so, To topple on the lonely pilgrim's head?
It is now getting late, and from time to time avalanches are heard,--so thus has my Sunday been spent.
Then deeper snow came and he could hear it thundering in avalanches on the distant slopes.
Snow lay for weeks, thawing, freezing, accumulating with every squall that came over from the mountains, and falling in small avalanches which started landslides all along the bluff.
The road you take lies through the river's gorge, And many a cross proclaims where travelers Have been by avalanches done to death.
They are the peaks that thunder so at night, And send the avalanches down upon us.
Another marks it curtly as "a desolate village tucked into the mountain side, with avalanches above and torrents below; in summer the refuge of cripples; in winter the residence of bears.
Avalanches pour down from the mountains on both sides and often leave little for the spring freshets to do.
Who knows the reciprocal ebb and flow of the infinitely great and the infinitely little, the reverberations of causes in the precipices of being, and the avalanches of creation?
This house has been planted here in the Jungfrau, that travellers may rest themselves in its beauty, and watch for the avalanches that now and then come thundering down its precipitous sides.
In the spring of the year the avalanchesmake the passage still more fearful.
There is great danger too in travelling here in the winter when the avalanches come rushing down the precipitous sides of these mountains.
In years past there have been terrible avalanches here, and once the house was crushed by the "thunderbolts of snow.
We rested a few moments only at this chalet, and then pushed on, passing a forest, or the ruins of a forest, which the avalanches had mown down as grass.
Certain spring avalanches descend with remarkable regularity in particular places, one every year.
Sir Martin Conway recalls his observations of avalanches in their actual progress along the Simplon Road one spring: Near Berisal I crossed one which had recently come to rest, traversing the road.
They fall all the year round, chiefly from high levels, but it is in the spring that the greatest avalanches come adrift.
In places where avalanches are expected, they recommend the building of terraces and dwarf-walls, so as to arrest the earliest snow-slip.
In the second place, where avalanches descend regularly every year, stone galleries are built, or tunnels are mined out of the solid rock to protect roads.
Destruction from avalanches there will continue to be in exceptional cases, for Nature insists, now and again, on displaying some unwonted, abnormal display of her power which sets at nought all precautions of man.
I say, have there been any avalancheson Mount Krestov?
Our drivers, declaring that no avalanches had yet fallen, spared the horses by conducting us round the mountain.
It is in order to protect the alpine roads from these avalanches that those long open galleries have been built on the face of the precipice.
In the narrow defile in which we now are, there are many remains of avalanches that neither the water of the torrent nor the heat of the sun has had power to melt.
Always all day long, while we were on that ridge, the distant thunder of avalanches resounded from the great basin far above us, into which the two summits of Denali were continually discharging their snows.
The cliffs around from time to time discharged their unstable snows in avalanches that threw clouds of snow almost across the wide glacier.
Often we could see nothing, and the noise of the avalanches without the sight of them was at times a little alarming.
Of course, as we expect in a Manville Fenn novel, there are tense moments when people fall down crevasses, when there are avalanches and ice-falls, when icy rocks break off and come tumbling towards them.
A great deal of snow comes down from the great stock up yonder, and from the valley between Piz Accio and Piz Nero, here on the right--avalanches of snow.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "avalanches" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
