WHITEFISH AVALANCHE!! PAGING FLATHEAD MAGS!

[Ferniefreeheels]

That totally bites!!! Keep it inbounds people at least for now. There's been so many close calls around here, everyone is staying put now (I hope!!) Fresh lines are great but their not to die for!

Vibes to all loved ones+++++


Just found this update:

Dean and Leininger: Corey Salois
Avalanche in the Backcountry
At Least Two Dead in Avalanche Near Whitefish

WHITEFISH (AP) – An avalanche on the back side of Whitefish Mountain Resort killed two backcountry skiers Sunday and searchers combed the slide area for other possible victims, Flathead County Sheriff Mike Meehan said.

Meehan said the avalanche occurred on Fiberglass Hill in the Canyon Creek drainage.

The number of people missing in the slide is unknown, Meehan said.

He described the avalanche as "massive," and said the slide area began high on the mountain side, is several hundred feet wide and piled up between 25 and 35 feet of snow by the time it came to a stop.

Emergency responders were alerted to the avalanche around noon, and more than 100 search and rescue people were quickly called to the scene.

Meehan released a statement indicating the body of a male victim was recovered at about 1:18 p.m. and a second body at 4:16 p.m. The gender of the second victim was not specified and sheriff's officials could not immediately be reached for clarification.

No names were released.

"At this time, there are conflicting statements to responders about how many more victims might have been buried in the avalanche," Meehan said. "If the scene of the avalanche is safe for rescue workers, rescue efforts will continue throughout the night."

[Sphinx15]

++++VIBES++++ so terrible

[Aenigma]

Wow, this is really shitty. RIP and +++vibes to those lost and not accounted for. Time to start checking in with all the Whitefish people I know.

[powslut]

Hope the fatalties remain the same and all the unnacounted for people are in the comforts of the indoors.

[single]

Unbelievable.

Prayers and ++++++++++vibes++++++++++++ to all involved.

[powder_prophet]

+++Vibes+++ to the rescuers, be safe out there tonight!!

[Fear Of A Flat Planet]

Dammit. this is one fuckin sketchball year. VIBES to all involved. +++++
Dammit.

EDIT. just on the news. 2 males dead. again, the word "massive" continually being used. several hundred feet wide. up to 40 feet deep. search has been called off for the night and will continue in the morning.

[skibuminwyo]

Fuck. Definitly not cool. +++++vibes to everyone up there.

[AsheanMT]

They called off the search til morning:

Two killed in Flathead County avalanche

Posted: Jan 13, 2008 07:43 PM

Updated: Jan 13, 2008 09:59 PM
Also on the Web
Northwestern Montana Avalanche Info

Two people were killed after an avalanche hit on Fiberglass Hill north of Columbia Falls and Whitefish on Sunday afternoon.

Authorities tell us that two men are dead and it's not clear if there are any more victims still buried under the snow in the third avalanche that's hit in the Canyon Creek Drainage area in the past month.

Flathead County Sheriff Mike Meehan says that while both of the victims were back country skiers, it does not appear they were skiing together.

It's still unknown at this time what triggered the massive slide, which hit about 12:30 p.m. on Sunday.

As of 9:00 p.m. on Sunday, the search for any other possible missing people was suspended in order to protect the safety of the search and rescue team.

Sheriff Meehan says that many volunteers and responders searched the area on Sunday.

"We've got 100 search and rescue, Nordic Ski Patrol, and also search and rescue [teams] from Flathead and North Valley Search and Rescue on the hill."

The Sheriff adds that rescue teams plan to resume the search at around 8:00 a.m. on Monday and that for now the Canyon Creek Drainage area is currently closed to the public.

So far, officials say that they aren't ready to release the names of those killed in Sunday's avalanche.

This is the third snowslide that's hit in the area this winter. Late last month a 19 year old got caught by an avalanche on his snowmobile and broke his leg.

Then on the next day, a second snowmobiler survived a slide which also in the area behind the Whitefish Mountain Resort

[KillingCokes]

This season just seems to be getting more and more fucked up. Vibes

[acostiga]

i heard that it was two snowboarders who were the victims. the local news had some camera phone video of the scene, and the line of people moving along doing a probe search. one of the reporters happened to be riding a snowmobile back there at the time. they showed the search and rescue people at what must have been up by the north fork snowmobile trailhead.

there had just recently been a strong warning against going back there in canyon creek, because a crazy one-eyed moose had been attacking people. i saw one of the moose warning signs at the bottom of chair seven on saturday, but don't remember exactly what it said.

we'd been digging pits up by the radio tower all morning long for avy awareness class. on the more north-facing aspect the snow was deep- we dug about 10 feet down and the snowpack was pretty consistent/solid. but on the other side of that road, the hellroaring side, the ground was only maybe five feet down. the layer directly against the ground was total sugar snow, really granular. damn, i bet i know what we'll talk about during tuesday night's avy course classroom session!

i'm anxious to know who the victims are. we made a few calls around tonight just to check on friends. hopefully none of the students at my school... glad to learn that none of you all were involved!!

[cascadianwarrior]

+prayers for the families involved+

[AsheanMT]

Hopefully they'll discover that nobody else is up there today.

[powder_prophet]

Hopefully they'll discover that nobody else is up there today.

Amen!!!!

[BestofShow]

This is getting f'n ridiculous.
+++++++vibes+++++++

[ride_pow]

+++ Vibes

[AsheanMT]

we'd been digging pits up by the radio tower all morning long for avy awareness class. on the more north-facing aspect the snow was deep- we dug about 10 feet down and the snowpack was pretty consistent/solid. but on the other side of that road, the hellroaring side, the ground was only maybe five feet down. the layer directly against the ground was total sugar snow, really granular. damn, i bet i know what we'll talk about during tuesday night's avy course classroom session!

Hey we are both in that class with Mr. Stan Bones. Cheers to you for being avy savy too.

[sfotex]

From http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2...cal/news02.txt

Two killed in avalanche
By MICHAEL JAMISON of the Missoulian


WHITEFISH - Two skiers died Sunday and two more were suspected missing after a massive avalanche swept through a popular out-of-bounds powder cache on the north side of Whitefish Mountain Resort.

Search and rescue teams worked until 9 p.m. before abandoning the backcountry site for the night, but planned to return at first light.

“It's big,” said Kim Gilmore. “It's big big.”
Gilmore, who was leading a team of three search dogs, estimated the slide at 250 yards wide and more than a quarter of a mile long. Searchers estimated the top six to seven feet of depth had cut loose in the avalanche.

A Whitefish man, whose name was not released, was confirmed killed in the avalanche, as was a second victim.

“We don't have a positive identification on him as yet,” said Flathead County Sheriff Mike Meehan, who was working the incident command center at the Canyon Creek trailhead.

Canyon Creek, located about five miles north of Columbia Falls on the North Fork Road, is the jumping-off point for an extensive system of groomed snowmobile trails. A major artery leads to the summit of Whitefish Mountain Resort, and skiers commonly drop onto that trail after leaving the in-bounds slopes for backcountry lines.

That's exactly what the victims had done Sunday, when the avalanche filled the canyon from the other side. The avalanche area was 12 miles from the trailhead.

Brad Treat, who works law enforcement for the U.S. Forest Service, was in the area at about noon, looking for a moose that has been attacking skiers and snowmobilers, near a ridge known locally as Fiberglass Hill.

“Two snowmobilers flagged us down,” and reported the slide, Treat said. “They said they couldn't believe the size of the avalanche.”

The snowmobilers reported seeing the two victims killed in the slide, as well as two other skiers lower down in the canyon. It was those two others who searchers were seeking late Sunday night.

“They absolutely confirm that they saw two more skiers get swallowed up,” Meehan said. “However, we still don't have two people who are reported missing.”

Meehan said it appeared several skiers were in the canyon bottom, hiking up the groomed track after skiing down the north slope of Big Mountain. A lone skier was above them, on the south-facing slope of Fiberglass Hill.

“He made two turns,” Treat said of that lone skier, “and the whole thing cut loose,” rushing down onto the skiers hiking up from below.

The avalanche, Gilmore said, raced down, slammed into the canyon, and rushed quite a long way up through the trees on the other side.

A longtime Whitefish resident and his brother-in-law - who recently moved to Whitefish - were making their way uphill near the top of the canyon, Meehan said, when the brother-in-law yelled “Avalanche!”

“They scrambled in two different directions,” ripping off skis and running for the trees, Treat said. Both were buried - the Whitefish man partly, and his brother-in-law completely.

Other skiers in the area raced to dig out the skier who triggered the slide, said snowmobiler Tyler Pierce, and he was found almost immediately. The skier soon died, however, because of trauma sustained in the accident.

The Whitefish skier, meanwhile, dug himself out, and with help from several volunteers began looking for his brother-in-law. Neither was wearing an avalanche transceiver, however, and searchers hunted for hours before finding the second victim.

“We took the call at just after 12 noon,” Meehan said. Treat had called it in on his Forest Service radio, having arrived at the scene within 10 minutes of the accident.

The first skier already had been uncovered by 10 or so skiers and snowmobilers who happened on the scene, and had died. So the search began for the missing brother-in-law, with help from the Whitefish man who pointed probe teams to the general area where he had last been seen. His body was recovered at about 4:30 p.m.

Searchers speculated he had not died instantly, as there were no signs of trauma and it appeared he had been able to move his head, carving out a cavity for breathing.

He was buried in three feet of snow.

In other areas, the slide buried the groomed track in the canyon bottom to a depth of more than 30 feet, complicating the search for the other two skiers reported swept away by the eyewitness snowmobilers.

“The dogs were all hitting on something, all of them in one spot, and we covered it completely,” said search dog handler Phil Frey. “We probed and probed and probed, but we didn't turn anything up. In some places, our probes weren't even reaching the bottom.”

That, said patrol commander Dave Leib, is a problem still looking for an answer.

“There's a lot of debate,” he said, “about how to scrape off the top layers so we can look deeper.”

And where to look remained a mystery late into the night.

“It's such a huge area,” Meehan said. “We don't even know for sure that they're missing. Maybe they're home safe and sound. Or maybe their car is parked right here in this parking lot” - or in the Whitefish Mountain lot.

Pierce, who knows the two snowmobilers who witnessed the slide, said they “are absolutely straight guys who know what they're doing. If they saw two more skiers, then there were two more skiers.”

That, in fact, was the assumption Meehan and all other searchers were working under.

They also, unfortunately, were working under “a very scary crack,” part of the overhanging ridge that still hasn't cut loose, Gilmore said. “We're pretty nervous about that.”

The cornice was the primary reason searchers were called off for the night, Meehan said, as encroaching fog was making it impossible to monitor the snowpack above.

Meehan said about 60 professional searchers responded, as did dozens of volunteer skiers and snowmobilers. On Monday, he expected teams from Eureka, Libby and Lake County to join his deputies, North Valley Search and Rescue, Flathead Valley Search and Rescue, Whitefish Mountain Resort responders and the Glacier Nordic Ski Patrol.

Sunday's avalanche occurred in a prime avalanche area. Fiberglass Hill was even named as such because of the many snowmobile pieces left behind after earlier accidents and avalanches.

It's the same area where a pair of avalanches caught snowmobilers in December.

In the first instance, late on the morning of Dec. 19, three snowmobilers were riding on a south-facing slope when one of them triggered a slab avalanche that partially buried him and his machine.

He was carried about 300 feet and suffered a broken femur after hitting a tree near midslope. His companions quickly found him - his head was above the snow - and one of the teenagers went for help, alerting the Whitefish Mountain Ski Patrol.

The next day, also late in the morning, a lone snowmobiler was on a groomed trail in Canyon Creek - very near the site of the previous day's avalanche - when his machine became stuck in deep snow.

While struggling to free the machine, the snowmobiler heard a sharp noise and looked uphill - where the snow was starting to move. He had no escape.

According to the Glacier Country Avalanche Center Web site, the snowmobiler decided to stand his ground, and watched “the snow move all around him, deflected from his position by upslope trees.”

When the slide stopped, his snowmobile, helmet, jacket and shovel had been covered. Eventually, after realizing he would not be able to find the clothing or equipment, he started walking toward the trailhead.

Sunday's avalanche deaths were Montana's first of the season.

[klaxed]

Wow, just wow. That's a huge avalanche. And a couple of those guys in the backcountry that were caught in the slide didn't have beacons?
+++Vibes+++ to all involved in the slide.

[telepow]

good God. 250'x7'x1/4 mile is ridiculous. Hopefully no others under there. Please keep us posted if names are released, getting nervous for a Whitefish buddy

[elesquiador]

Horrible. What a huge slide and deep fracture. Can anyone give a description of the area? How steep is is, whats the aspect, elevation, etc?

[moose pit]

More shitty news. No beacons out of bounds
+++Vibes for family and friends

[acostiga]

just heard that the two confirmed victims were college age, from kalispell. other details are still sketchy. i guess this was on the today show, and cnn as well. got a few calls from friends back east. scary stuff. we're all still pretty worried about what might happen with today's search...

[danimal's dead]

That was the most humbling thing I have ever witnessed, I'm in shock.

Hail Mary full of Grace the Lord is with the blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus, Holy Mary Mother of God pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death, Amen.

[tommyphill]

Throwing out hopes and prayers for all involved. It is scary to hear about an area you have been on.... rip out with such magnitude. Good luck to the search teams