Memorial for Maixner is Wednesday at Schweitzer

Tue., Jan. 18, 2005

From staff and wire reports

A memorial service for Shane Maixner, the Sandpoint snowboarder who died in a Utah avalanche Friday, will be held at Taps Lounge at Schweitzer Mountain at 5 p.m. Wednesday. A prayer service will be held Thursday at 7 p.m. and a funeral will follow on Friday at 12:30 p.m. in Bismarck, N.D. Maixner, 27, was born in North Dakota.

The avalanche produced a 16-acre field of snow that measured up to 30 feet deep in spots. Maixner’s body was recovered Sunday with the help of trained dogs.

On Monday, authorities scaled back their search of the avalanche site.

“Right now, we believe that we have taken the one sole victim out of there,” Summit County Sheriff Dave Edmunds said Monday.

Initial accounts had led authorities to believe as many as five people might have been caught up in the slide near Park City, about 20 miles east of Salt Lake City.

Other items of clothing found near the body hinted at the possibility of more victims. But Edmunds said it’s common during rescue efforts to find incidental items in the debris.

A limited search will continue, but bigger groups won’t scale the mountain again without credible evidence that others are missing, Edmunds said.

Maixner moved to Sandpoint in 1997 and was living and working on Schweitzer Mountain as a volunteer firefighter and EMT. He was also a backcountry skiing and snowmobile guide.

He is survived by his father, Joel Maixner, and stepmother, Linda Hixson Maixner, eight siblings, and his grandmother.

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