Field Reports: Skier’s body recovered at Mount Rainier National Park
From staff reports
Rangers in Mount Rainier National Park this week recovered the body of a female skier who had been missing since mid-May.
The park announced in a news release that searchers found the skier dead at the base of Pebble Creek’s Moraine Falls on June 8.
The skier had been missing since May 18, when she set out for a ski tour above Paradise. A search began on May 19.
Rangers searched Deadhorse Creek Basin, Panorama Face and Alta Vista, according to the release. Climbing rangers looked over the Nisqually and Paradise glaciers and searched the Muir Snowfield to Pebble Creek and Panorama Point. Volunteers also did a visual search of the Nisqually drainage.
A contract helicopter was able to fly during a window of good weather and found the skier at the base of a waterfall. The release said she appeared to have fallen about 200 feet.
An unstable snow moat with threats of rock and ice falls posed immediate risks to recovery teams, according to the release. During another stretch of favorable weather, rangers used traditional crevasse rescue methods to recover the body.
The body was taken to the Kautz Creek Helibase to be evaluated by the Pierce County medical examiner.
Idaho looking for anglers’ help to manage walleye
Idaho fisheries officials are asking anglers to kill and report any walleye they catch in the state’s storied salmon and steelhead rivers.
Walleye are a warmwater species that’s known to be a voracious predator on young fish. They’re also known to have been moving beyond Lower Granite Dam in Washington and getting into the Snake and Salmon rivers.
The Idaho Department of Fish and Game said in a news release that it’s hard to know just how many walleye are in those rivers, and that anglers can help fill in the details.
The agency is asking that anyone who catches a walleye in an Idaho river kill it, take a photo and contact Fish and Game biologist Marika Dobos at the Lewiston regional office by email at marika.dobos@idfg.gov or by calling 208-750-4228.
“We know it can be an inconvenience to their fishing trips, but catching, keeping and reporting walleye is the best tool biologists have to monitor where these fish are migrating, estimating how many might be out there, and also removing some of them,” Dobos said in the release.
Walleye reports in the salmon and steelhead rivers were scant until recently, and only four had been confirmed with photographs, according to Idaho Fish and Game. Walleye and northern pikeminnow can be misidentified, so the agency says pictures are key to angler reports.
After asking anglers to report walleye catches last year, Fish and Game received reports of 18 walleye being caught in 2023, and already a few reports have come this year.
The agency said the reports indicate walleye can be found in the Snake River all the way upstream to Hells Canyon Dam and in the lower Salmon River as far upstream as Riggins. Both areas are important migration corridors for salmon and steelhead, and biologists worry a greater expansion of walleye could pose a threat for the fish.
Anglers should report walleye catches with the location, size and method to help Fish and Game better understand walleye distribution. They’re also interested in reports from any waterbody outside the three reservoirs where the fish are intended to be – Oneida, Oakley and Salmon Falls Creek reservoirs.
Silver Mountain general manager named president of Ski Idaho
Jeff Colburn, the general manager of Silver Mountain Resort in Kellogg, Idaho, was named the president of the state’s association of ski areas.
The board of the Idaho Ski Areas Association, also known as Ski Idaho, elected Colburn president during its annual meeting last week in Sun Valley, according to a news release.
Colburn has worked in the resort industry for more than 30 years. He grew up in Cusick and Newport, Washington, and studied marketing at Eastern Washington University.
He entered the resort industry with Eagle Crest Resort in Redmond, Oregon, in 1991. In 2005, he moved to Silver Mountain and became general manager the following year.
Colburn said in the release that he hopes to use his four-year term as the association’s president to aid in growing Idaho’s ski industry.
“Ski Idaho’s focus should remain on continuing to position Idaho as a ski destination with uncrowded slopes and a fantastic mix of big and small resorts,” Colburn said.
He succeeds Brad Wilson, the general manager of Bogus Basin Mountain Recreation Area.