Once more an Alaskan snowmachine rider has plummeted into a glacier crevasse. And once more the snowmachiner has been lucky to survive.

And once more there is a report of a "miracle."

But there was no miracle. The miracle would be if Karl Jabas came back from the grave, or if Rich Runser could walk again.

The latest snowmachiner to fall through a crevasse on the Nelchina, 54-year-old David Joerg from Eagle River, was luckier than Runser. Joerg spent hours trapped deep in the ice but was eventually pulled to safety -- not by God but by members of the Alaska Mountain Rescue Group familiar with crevasse rescue techniques. 

Jabas drove his snowmachine into a crevasse in the Spencer Glacier in 2008 and died. He was only 28 years old. Runser drove his snowmachine into a crevasse on the Nelchina Glacier in 1997. A snowmachine, either his or that of a riding companion, landed on him.

Runser was left paralayzed from the chest down. 

It is fine that Joerg's family and friends want to believe that prayer had something to do with the outcome, but no amount of prayer will not get you out of a glacier crevasse or keep you safe crossing a glacier. None of which is meant to diminish the power of prayer. It has shown value in healing in the sick, and there is no doubt about its ability to comfort the living. But whatever God's role in this affair, he can't any more be credited with getting Joerg out of the crevasse than he can be blamed for putting the man in there.

Joerg ended up in a crevasse because he was riding where he should not have been riding. If there is a miracle here, it is that he and riding companion Rod Hansen, another 54 year old, didn't both punch through crevasses along with their snowmachines, in which case, Alaska State Troopers might still be out there searching the broad expanse of the Nelchina. A snowmachine and a rider can be swallowed by an Alaska glacier and barely leave a hole. Possibly, if that had happened, there would have been obvious snowmachine tracks left to guide troopers to a rescue. Possibly not. Snowmachine tracks can melt down to nothing pretty fast in the spring sun.

Joerg, for his part, says he's learned a lesson: It's not wise to ride snowmachines along unknown glacial routes.

Some might argue it's unsafe to ride snowmachines anywhere on glaciers, but there are safe ways to travel on ice. One can follow marked routes that have been probed for crevasses, or actually get off the machine, rope up and go probe a safe route. Most don't, and too many heedlessly follow the tracks of others, somehow thinking those who have gone before must know where they are going. Why? Unless you know the person who put in the trail and where they put it, what guarantee is there that they knew where they were going?

Runser's party was following an old snowmachine track. He and a number of people with him followed the track smack into a crevasse. Runser spent years after the accident trying to promote snowmachine safety. This is a difficult task. The 21st century snowmachine is a seductive beast. Given the right snow conditions, it can take even intermediate level riders into parts of Alaska they would never be able to reach in summer. Sometimes, unfortunately, it can take them smack into danger, as Joerg and Hansen discovered.

Glaciers are risky places to ride snowmachines. Maybe not as risky thin ice, which every year seems to kill a half-dozen or so Alaska snowmobilers, but risky. At the very least, anyone who decides to take a snowmachine onto a glacier needs to know the basics of glacier travel and crevasse rescue. The Alaska Mountaineering School in Talkeetna teaches a class. It's a lot better to learn about glaciers and how to travel safely on them -- or not -- than to count on miracles.

Miracles are rare in the extreme. Most of those you read about are concocted by what former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin likes to call the "lamestream media'' because the facts behind "accidents" are often uncomfortable to report. The facts are often that somebody screwed up. It's human nature. People are prone to screw up.

Hundreds if not hundreds of thousands of them will screw up today at tasks big and small. But most of the media doesn't like to face this reality when "accidents" happen because it's not much fun to tell people they screwed up, and thus arise these "miracles."

Contact Craig Medred at craig(at)alaskadispatch.com