RCMP Say Almost Everyone Accounted For After Deadly B.C. Avalanche

The scope of the tragedy was still unfolding Sunday after a massive avalanche came down on a group of snowmobilers in British Columbia’s Monashee Mountains, apparently triggered by three daredevil sledders who unleashed a deadly wall of snow on up to 200 people below.

Some of the people at risk, possibly including children, were watching from what they must have thought was a safe distance as what one witness called “those crazy guys” raced their snowmobiles up the side of the mountain.

RCMP said Sunday two men have been confirmed dead and though it’s possible there may still be people unaccounted for, they’ve managed to find almost everyone who registered for the event and most got safely off the mountain.

Cpl. Dan Moskaluk did not say there will be no more bodies found, but he said RCMP have not had any further reports of people who remain missing and they believe they have an accurate list of participants.

By Sunday afternoon after police had re-checked about 40 hotel rooms where the snowmobiling guests were staying, the situation was not looking as dire as the worst-case scenario that potentially dozens of people were dead.

Police knocked on hotel doors all night to try and determine how many people who came to town for the informal Big Iron Shoot-Out might be buried under the snow of Boulder Mountain.

The annual event – “big iron” sometimes refers to a snowmobile – is a gathering not sanctioned by any snowmobile club and involves different kinds of skills contests. High-marking isn’t uncommon.

Moskaluk told reporters in Revelstoke, about 400 kilometres northeast of Vancouver, that 30 people were injured, one person critically. Nineteen of the injured have been released from hospital and four transferred to hospitals in Calgary, Kelowna, Kamloops and Vernon, B.C., for treatment of more serious injuries.

Avalanche technicians flew over the area to test for stability Sunday morning and about 40 to 50 searchers were on the mountain by mid-morning with five avalanche-trained search dogs.

Moskaluk said some hope remained that anyone caught up in the slide could still be alive, but he indicated it might not be likely.

“I don’t think we ever want to give up hope. Certainly there is faint hope at this time, however, being realistic we are referring to this as a recover/rescue situation.”

The town, nestled in the Columbia mountain range on the western edge of the majestic Rocky Mountains, has seen its share of backcountry tragedy but this latest slide shook Revelstoke and the entire backcountry community.

Two men who witnessed the avalanche said it hit so many people in part because a crowd stopped to watch a group high-marking up the mountain. High-marking is a contest among snowmobilers to see who can climb the highest on a mountain, leaving the highest mark.

Steve Langevin, 38, said he thought the crowd was safe from the people he called “those crazy guys” because they were what seemed like kilometres away, but the wave of snow was so massive it easily reached them.

His friend, Pierre Beaudoin, 48, said the accident could have been prevented if people hadn’t been high-marking.

“We were watching, a whole bunch of people were parking there and then they were watching the high-mark. That’s why everybody was stopped there.”

He said it was irresponsible for them to run up the mountainside in those conditions, especially with a number of them going up at the same time.

“The minute one makes it to the top, oh, the next guy, I could do it, and then it becomes stupid. And it was stupid, they were starting to come from the side, one’s coming down and one’s going up.

“Then everything started going crazy.”

Another survivor, from Fort St. John, in northern B.C., described a “big white wall of snow” coming down on his group of about 20 to 30 snowmobilers on the mountain in the Monashee Mountains, which are part of the Columbia Mountain range.

The man, who did not want to give his name, said they saw the slide coming and had only a few seconds to react.

He dove behind his snowmobile, and ended up partially buried. Members of his group dug him out.

Ervin McKeen, 62, from Nanton, Alta., was nearby when the avalanche occurred and he said there were about 150 people in the area where the snow came down.

It was pandemonium, said McKeen, who has himself been caught up in three slides.

He said one man was screaming “where’s my son,” as he desperately searched the area. Snowmobiles were tossed around everywhere, he said Sunday.

The experienced backcountry user said he used his equipment to lead survivors with shovels to places in the snow where avalanche beacon signals – a piece of equipment that gives off an electronic signal from under the snow – indicated people might be buried.

Kathy Berlingette, owner of the Smokey Bear Campground Resort in the area, said she had five guests who came to town for the event, an increasingly popular informal gathering of those who enjoy snowmobiling in the deep snow of the B.C. backcountry.

All five of her guests survived the avalanche that struck around 3:30 p.m. in an area called the Turbo Bowl, a fairly flat expanse between two mountains, at the foot of Boulder.

Berlingette said some of participants had their children with them. It’s unknown if any children are among those still missing.

A spokeswoman for the Interior Health region said the area hospital called in all available staff, adding that four people were transferred to larger hospitals in the region for treatment of more serious injuries.

The Canadian Avalanche Centre had a warning out for the area this weekend that the risk of avalanche was “considerable.”

Greg Johnson, of the Canadian Avalanche Association that runs the centre based in Revelstoke, said conditions in the B.C. backcountry have been “tricky” for past six weeks, and got worse after a storm in recent days dumped a heavy load of snow on weak layers underneath.

The snow pack was stabilizing but was still “highly unstable” when the slide occurred.

“We continue to receive reports of avalanches being triggered this morning, so, the snowpack is still very unstable on a certain part of the terrain where avalanches have not run in the cycle,” Johnson told reporters in Revelstoke.

Johnson avoided comment on whether the snowmobilers should have been there at all.

“We issue our bulletins daily, we update our bulletins daily from the avalanche centre. We also make efforts to send out special information, special avalanche warnings when conditions are conducive to higher risk. We did that the way we normally do,” he said. “Whether these people had that information when they went into the mountains, I can’t tell.

At least some “sledders” from the local area didn’t take part in the gathering.

Adam Burke, 20 and a member of the Revelstoke Snowmobile Club, said his mother and many of his friends were up there at the time but he chose not to go because of the dangerous conditions.

“I told everyone to shut the mountain down. … Just how I’ve been riding and I’ve noticed a lot of slab avalanches and I’ve caused a lot of little stuff over the season and it’s just progressively gotten worse,” Burke said in a telephone interview after the slide.

“I told my mom to shut it down and don’t have anything to do with this event because it’s going to kick you in the ass.”

The RCMP and the coroner’s service are investigating the incident.

Revelstoke Mayor David Raven said authorities had no idea how many potential victims they were dealing with. Estimates by those who were at the scene range from 50 to 150.

So far this year, there have been far fewer avalanche deaths compared to last winter when there were two dozen. One slide claimed the lives of eight snowmobilers near Fernie, B.C., in December 2008. There were 13 avalanche deaths the previous winter.