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Six killed in weekend avalanches across West

Associated Press The Spokesman-Review

HELENA – Weekend avalanches killed six people in Montana, Utah and Idaho, with one bruised survivor traveling miles by snowmobile and on foot to reach help, authorities said.

In Montana’s Big Belt Mountains, the bodies of two snowmobilers caught in an avalanche were found by searchers early Sunday and removed later in the day.

That avalanche happened Saturday at the base of Mount Baldy, about 20 miles from Townsend. A survivor traveled the 15 or 20 miles back to the trailhead, initially by snowmobile and then on foot after the machine became stuck, Lewis and Clark County Sheriff Cheryl Leidle said.

Upon reaching a pickup truck at the trailhead, he used a cell phone to call for help.

“It would appear the avalanche drove them into a grove of trees downhill from the avalanche itself,” Leidle said.

Families of the snowmobilers issued a statement identifying the deceased as Kris Rains, 26, and Brett Toney, 27, both of Townsend, and the survivor as Jason Crawford, 27, of Helena. Leidle described them as friends from the Townsend area.

In Utah, two snowmobilers died in separate avalanches on Saturday and a 17-year-old skier from Massachusetts was killed after being caught in a Sunday afternoon slide while skiing out of bounds near the Snowbasin ski resort.

Authorities found the boy’s body after several hours of searching. He is the second teenager to die in a Utah avalanche this weekend.

The other, Zachary Holmes, 16, of Farr West, was buried by an avalanche estimated to be 300 feet wide near Tower Mountain in the Uinta Mountains, the Wasatch County sheriff’s office said. He later died at the University of Utah Hospital, authorities said.

Earlier Saturday, a snowmobiler on Signal Peak in southwestern Utah triggered the avalanche that killed him, the Sevier County sheriff’s office said. His name was not released.

In Idaho, the Bonneville County Sheriff’s Office in Idaho Falls confirmed the death of a Utah man in an avalanche near Palisade Peak. His name was not immediately available.