Avalanches Kill 9 In B.C., Montana

A series of avalanches in British Columbia and western Montana killed nine people, authorities said Saturday.

Seven skiers were killed and at least one person was missing after avalanches hit two separate ski parties in the Selkirk Mountains north of Nelson, in southeast British Columbia, police said Saturday.

The bodies of five skiers were dug out near a glacier in Kokanee Glacier Provincial Park, west of Kaslo and 30 miles north of Nelson, and the search was to continue today for a sixth missing person, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said.

The party of six was reported overdue on Friday.

At least two other skiers died Saturday afternoon in an avalanche near Mount Alwin, northwest of New Denver, which is 40 miles north of Nelson.

The two were part of a skiing expedition, police said. It was not known how many others were in the group, or whether others were missing or injured.

None of the victims in either incident was identified by the RCMP, but authorities late Saturday night said they didn’t think any of the victims were from the Spokane area.

Nelson is 40 miles north of the Washington-B.C. border crossing at Nelway, B.C.

The bodies of the five killed in Kokanee park were not expected to be removed until today because of severe weather conditions.

The six, who apparently were flown into the area to ski, failed to return to their cabin late Friday.

The only winter access to the Silver Spray cabin, near Woodbury Glacier, is by helicopter. The search began Saturday morning by provincial Search and Rescue officials and RCMP officers.

The Selkirk Range is a popular site for heli-skiers from North America and Europe, who fly in high on the mountains via helicopter and ski down.

While there are usually several deaths a year in B.C. among heliskiers, the most recent incidents appear to be among the worst.

Two people, including a Californian, died in the Selkirk Range last March when they were hit by an avalanche. Three Europeans were killed in December 1996 in an accident near Whistler, north of Vancouver.

The two previous worst avalanches each killed seven heli-skiers.

The first fatality in Montana occurred when Rodney Sutherland, 29, and Chuck Maffei were snowshoeing in the Riddel Lakes Basin near St. Ignatius Saturday morning when a large mass of snow broke loose.

The pair were tied together, but the rope broke and Sutherland became buried, Maffei told the Missoulian newspaper in a telephone interview. Sutherland’s body has not been recovered.

The second fatality occurred Saturday afternoon when a group of three or four Bitterroot Valley snowmobilers became trapped in an avalanche near Shadow Lake, a popular snowmobiling area southeast of Hamilton.

All but one of the snowmobilers were able to dig out, Ravalli County authorities said.

After four or five hours of searching, the body of Martin Vincent Litvin, 53, of Corvallis, Ore., was recovered. Litvin was a retired schoolteacher who was employed by the Forest Service.

He was president of a Bitterroot snowmobiling club and had taught a class on snow machine safety, said Detective Jim Chinn.

Sutherland, of Missoula, was a skilled climber who in 1991 rescued a fellow University of Montana student who had lost his rope while ice climbing frozen Blodgett Falls. The man dangled for 12 hours in subzero temperatures before Sutherland arrived. Sutherland made the treacherous, three-hour climb up the falls in the darkness to save a man he didn’t know.

MEMO: Changed from the Idaho edition.