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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Two GU students die in Idaho avalanche


Brian Brett
 (The Spokesman-Review)

MULLAN, Idaho – Two Gonzaga University students were killed in a massive avalanche Sunday afternoon while snowboarding and skiing on a steep backcountry slope near the Montana-Idaho border.

A third member of the group survived the slide and spent the remaining daylight hours fruitlessly trying to locate his buried friends before hiking out and calling authorities from a home at the base of the slope.

Despite the “incredible” risk of additional avalanches in the drainage, a crew of five rescuers used snowshoes to return to the remote area after dark Sunday, hoping the two men still might be alive beneath the snow, said Shoshone County Sheriff Chuck Reynalds.

The search-and-rescue crew found the bodies of 24-year-old Brian Brett, of Bellingham, and Pete Tripp, 22, of Bend, Ore., at about 2 a.m. Monday. One of the men is believed to have died from suffocation; the other likely died from a traumatic head injury, Reynalds said. Sean A. Forbes, 22, of Montana, survived the slide.

The avalanche occurred at about 1:30 p.m. Sunday near Lone Lake, about four miles southeast of Mullan. The trio had used snowshoes to hike about three miles up the Willow Creek drainage and had planned to spend the afternoon skiing and snowboarding in more than a foot of freshly fallen powder. The group was just below a ridge top on an east-facing slope when the avalanche was triggered, rescuers said.

The slide was about 150 yards wide and more than a quarter-mile long, according to rescuers. After the avalanche came to a stop in a flat area, the snow was piled up at least 20 feet deep. Some of the rescuers said it was one of the largest slides they had ever seen, Reynalds said. “This was huge.”

Rescuers said the men’s bodies were found on a slope estimated at 40 percent steepness, which is considered the highest risk for avalanches.

On Friday, the U.S. Forest Service had issued a statement warning of “considerable” avalanche danger in much of North Idaho’s backcountry, particularly on cooler slopes that receive little exposure to the sun.

The risk increased in the last week because a lingering cold snap had hardened the snow surface, creating a “surface hoar” layer to which fresh snow does not easily adhere, according to Bob Kasun, an avalanche forecaster with the U.S. Forest Service office in Coeur d’Alene. Snow that fell Friday and Saturday had no chance to bond to this hard surface.

The three men were carrying emergency locater beacons and were not backcountry novices, Reynalds said. At least one of the men had visited the drainage previously.

Reynalds said he’s baffled why the men chose to ski and snowboard in the area despite their knowledge of the conditions.

“They didn’t pay any attention to the high avalanche danger,” Reynalds said. “They wanted to go and they went. It’s such a waste.”

Undersheriff Mitch Alexander was part of the rescue team that snowshoed in after dark. With each step, they worried about setting off avalanches from the unseen steep slopes above. Occasionally, the rescuers heard the terrifying “whoompf” sound of buried snow layers breaking and suddenly settling. The sound is often a preview to a slide.

“We were kicking little avalanches while we were going in,” Alexander said.

A Forest Service law officer on the rescue crew said the snow was ” ‘harrumphing’ just about every step. … It’s just terrible up there.”

After rescuers found the bodies, they decided to leave them at the site until daylight when a safer recovery effort could be mounted, Reynalds said. Before leaving for the night, rescuers placed the two bodies together and marked the area with plastic tape.

A helicopter had been called in to retrieve the bodies Monday morning, but it was unable to fly because of freezing rain, Reynalds said.

The rain and warming temperatures made avalanche conditions even more likely Monday, said sheriff’s deputy Gery Yergler, who served on the recovery team and also volunteers as a National Ski Patrol avalanche safety instructor. He said the sudden warming added considerable stress to the already unstable underlayer of snow. “It just makes it way heavier on top of the weak layer.”

Reynalds nearly called off the recovery effort Monday because of the high risks. But rescuers proceeded cautiously, and at 1:45 p.m., sleds bearing the bodies were pulled out of the drainage. About 15 men took part in the effort, including local volunteers and law officers from Shoshone County and the Forest Service.

According to the Colorado Avalanche Information Center, which tracks fatalities, 16 people have been killed this season by avalanches. Last season, 23 people were killed, including seven in Washington.

Last week, Forest Service spokesman Dave O’Brien said avalanche deaths have emerged as a leading cause of death in the region’s national forests. Such deaths were relatively infrequent until the 1980s, when advances in snowmobile technology made it easier for people to reach avalanche-prone slopes in the backcountry.