Interesting article on slide outside of Butte, America.
It appears Mr. Search and Rescue may need to find a different line of work. I think it is almost impossible that the area was truly closed to anything. The comments are pretty special, too.
Military helicopter rescues skiers in Highlands
http://mtstandard.com/news/local/mil...a4bcf887a.html
A military helicopter was dispatched to rescue four Butte skiers after they triggered an avalanche in the Highlands and one skier was injured.
The 12-hour search ended about 4 a.m. Monday when three of the skiers were lifted off the mountain. One was rushed to St. James Healthcare and treated for a diabetic emergency and potential broken bones, said Brad Belke, commander of the 15-90 Search and Rescue team.
The other three skiers were uninjured and lucky to be alive, said Belke, who called the operation one of the most harrowing rescues in his 34-year career. The search included more than 30 members of the rescue team, plus two helicopter crews – including one from Malmstrom Air Force Base – paramedics and police.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said. “I was, frankly, quite surprised anyone would go in there.”
Rescuers said the skiers were in a restricted area. The skiers said they believed they area where the avalanche occured was not off limits.
The area was in a large bowl at about 8,000 feet, accessible only on foot, just east of a lookout tower, Belke said. From search helicopters, rescuers spotted 36 avalanche slides in the bowl. The skiers caused two more, Belke said, including the one that trapped them.
Rescued were Jack Preston, a nurse with diabetes who kept in contact with rescuers about his condition by cellphone; Christina Hayden; Kevin Curtis and his wife, Amanda Curtis, a state legislator who also teaches at Butte High School.
Amanda Curtis said the party hiked in about 9 a.m. Two of the skiers had started down the mountain when the avalanche started above the third.
It swept the lower two across a rock bar for 500 feet to the base, Curtis told The Montana Standard.
"We established through yelling that we were all alive," Curtis said.
But the skiers quickly learned Preston wouldn't be able to hike out. And once up the mountain, rescuers realized reaching the skiers on the ground would be impossible.
“It was just bizarre conditions up there. You had hundreds of yards of dry dirt and then feet of the soupiest stuff,” Belke said. “You have to drag the ATVs across the snow just to get to the dirt. These guys were exhausted.
“We’d still be there if we had to carry these people out,” Belke said.
A LifeFlight helicopter scanned the skies above the bowl. But the helicopter, designed for medical transports and not rescue operations, wasn’t equipped for a snowy mountain landing.
“The helicopter crew really wanted to try to land and get these people, but they couldn’t,” Belke said. “It was just too dangerous.”
As the sun was setting, officials called Malmstrom Air Force Base in Great Falls, which dispatched a Huey helicopter with night-vision technology.
Meanwhile, Creston’s condition was worsening and the skiers were getting anxious, Belke said. “At one point they said, ‘The snow is collapsing all around us.”
The skiers kept in constant contact by cellphone with Belke and others at a staging area along the snowline. But crews were surprised when they spotted someone in the woods about 200 yards outside the staging area. It was Hayden, who’d hiked out of the bowl and down the mountain on her own.
The Air Force helicopter spotted the remaining three skiers, and all were safely lifted off the mountain and taken to Bert Mooney Airport where ambulances were waiting. None were still in the hospital by noon Monday, according to St. James.
Curtis said she and her husband could have hiked out but the helicopter crew insisted they ride down with Preston.
Belke said the skiers should have known better. The area is clearly marked on maps as restricted, he said, and conditions were ripe for avalanches.
“It makes me angry,” Belke said. “We didn’t get home until 4 a.m.”
Curtis said trails wound all they way to the bowl and there were no signs saying the area was closed.
"Between the four of us, we have 60 years of combined experience skiing in the backcountry," Curtis said. "We’ve skied that spot for 15 years."
