Marine Major Chris Alexander, 33, returns from his fourth combat tour having lost a hand and a foot, feeling personally guilty for the loss of several of his men, and finds his family killed in an auto accident. In deep personal depression he considers ending his misery in the mountains of Colorado.
However, at the moment of decision, Chris is interrupted by Greg, 22, on a Christmas vacation at a small mountain inn, and who has eyes on Nikki, the innkeeper's granddaughter.
On December 22nd, a monster blizzard descends upon the Rockies, closing highways and and isolating the inn, high in the mountains. The small inn becomes the sole refuge for over 80 additional Christmas travelers, including a choir from Denver. The choir director, Jessica, a high school counselor immediately notices Chris has a problem. He opens up to her and admits to his personal depressive storm.
Meanwhile, the storm hits like a frigid hammer, taking out electricity and phone lines like never before. The water supply, heaters, and snowmobiles all fail, but are all repaired by refugees. Everybody hunkers down together to survive a tough Christmas week.
On December 24th, hunting guide Quint struggles out of the subzero storm to find help to rescue four hunting buddies freezing to death in an inadequate snow shelter. Chris joins Greg and Nikki to find the hunters with snowmobiles, even in twenty below blizzard conditions. After the hunters are rescued, a few mishaps force Nikki and Greg to spend the night alone in the small shelter. Their relationship improves.
When the storm pauses early on Christmas morning, Chris and Quint launch from the Inn to recover Nikki and Greg, but in their rush in the pre dawn darkness, Quint accidentally drives off the edge of a cliff and slides to the bottom. Hearing an avalanche, Chris decides to check out Nikki and Greg before returning to help Quint.
Chris finds the shelter wiped away with the avalanche, but with the help of the Innkeeper’s trained dog, they find and resuscitate Nikki and Greg.
As the group returns to the Inn, Chris climbs down the cliff face to find an injured Quint. Unable to climb out, they decide to walk out another way through five feet of new powder in subzero conditions. They quickly find they are in serious trouble.
Greg organizes a rescue party to find Quint and Chris as the two men approach physical exhaustion and total shutdown. In a vision, Chris’s deceased wife and dad appear to him, pleading for him to keep going and not to give up.
Greg, with help, finds Chris and Quint, and they return to the Inn for Christmas morning before the storm resumes. As the Inn celebrates Christmas, Jessica points out to Chris that God obviously isn't through with him.
