Searchers Recover Body Of Avalanche Victim Friends Riding Nearby Triggered Snow Slide That Buried Snowmobiler

Searchers on Sunday found the body of a 30-year-old snowmobiler who died in an avalanche north of Priest Lake.

The victim’s friends - riding snowmobiles on a nearby ridge - triggered a snow slide Saturday that was a quarter-mile across and up to 10 feet deep, sheriff’s deputies said.

Troy Douglass and another person were riding below the others Saturday in the Hell Roaring drainage area near the border of Bonner and Boundary counties.

Douglass and both snowmobiles were buried in the avalanche, but the other rider managed to escape on foot, deputies said.

After being alerted at 12:40 p.m., rescue teams from Bonner and Boundary counties, searchers from the U.S. Forest Service, volunteers and Douglass’ friends scoured the slopes until dark without success.

Searchers went out in force again at 6 a.m. Sunday - this time numbering more than 100.

Fifty-one search and rescue volunteers, including some from Kootenai County, combed the ridge. Seventy others mounted snowmobiles. Three tracking dogs aided the hunt. Schweitzer Mountain Ski Patrol loaned gear to the effort.

Douglass was found at 9:22 a.m., deputies reported. Further details were not available.

Saturday’s snow slide follows a North Idaho avalanche in late February, also involving snowmobilers. A videotape of that slide was sold to tabloid TV.

No one was hurt in that incident, but the U.S. Forest Service is investigating the possibility that the avalanche was a planned stunt.

A Thompson Falls, Mont., man was crushed last month in Montana’s Beaverhead Mountains after his snowmobile apparently triggered two big avalanches.

The Forest Service is also looking at restricting snowmobile use in the Lolo National Forest’s “Great Burn” - a mountainous region in Montana known both for its striking beauty and vulnerability to avalanches.

, DataTimes