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There was an avalanche death on Mt. Robson on July 9, 1997. 5 climbers camped below the North Face were caught while they slept. Four escaped but an 18-year-old North Vancouver man was killed. His body was found by rescue dogs.
Dale Atkins, Colorado Avalanche Information Center
2 climbers caught, 1 injured, 1 partly buried and killed
Accident Summary
Gladstone Peak (13,913 feet) is a spectacular looking peak located between it two more famous 14'er neighbors Mt. Wilson and Wilson Peak. At about 1400 hours on Saturday afternoon two Colorado climbers were caught by a natural wet-slab avalanche high on Gladstone Peak. The pair were traversing a snowfield about 100 feet below the summit when they triggered the avalanche. Details are still sketchy, however, it appears the pair were on a small rock ledge that crumbled beneath them triggering a small wet-slab avalanche. One man was carried a very short distance but suffered only cuts and bruises. The other victim, a 23-year-old Castle Rock man was carried about 150-200 vertical feet and partly buried. He apparently died from serious head injuries suffered during his short ride. He was not wearing a helmet. Two other friends were on the ridge above the pair but did not see the avalanche. They only learned of the tragedy when the one slightly injured climber was able to scramble back to the ridge. Not equipped for steep snow travel the three were unable to descend to their friend, so they left to get help. At a campgroundlower on the mountain they borrowed a cellular telephone to alert the San Miguel Sheriff's Department. A rapid response got rescuers to the victim by about 1700 hours. They then evacuated the body.
Avalanche Data
This avalanche can be classified as a WS-AF-2-G. This small-sized wet slab fractured 2.5 to 3 feet deep to the ground and was only about 30-40 feet wide. It was artifically triggered by the weight of the climbers and rocks. The steep snow slope faces to the northeast, and the avalanche released from about an elevation of 13,800 feet. Rescuers said the day was hot and added that the snow was very wet. They also said the avalanche entrained considerable amounts of dirt and rock, typical of summertime avalanches.
Comments
Falling rock and avalanches are certainly among the dangers climbers face when tackling the rugged and rotten summits of the San Miguel Mountains. Though this group suffered bad luck their accident was typical of many that occur in the mountains. Warm temperatures, late afternoons, rotten rock, shallow wet snow and steep slopes are key ingredients to rock fall and avalanches. Add to this list the group's inexperience, lack of proper equipment and poor decision-making and you have the recipe for disaster. Sadly, these ingredients came together on Gladstone Peak. This accident is a grim reminder that even in summer avalanches can still threaten the visitors to steep, high-elevation slopes.
The last Colorado avalanche victim killed during July occurred on July 4, 1976, on Mt. Ypsilon. Though that accident was unwitnessed the avalanche is suspected to have been caused when a portion of the cornice collapsed onto the steep snow slope the victim was climbing. The following year on July 3, 1977, two climbers were caught and injured, also on Mt. Ypsilon when a huge portion of cornice collapsed above them.
This was the first Colorado avalanche fatality of the 1996-97 avalanche season (Sept. 1 to Aug. 31). It was the 20th avalanche fatality in the US this season.
Dale Atkins, Colorado Avalanche Information Center
On Friday April 11 a 27 year old Anchorage man died in an avalanche near the Gakona Glacier in the Hoodoos Mts.(Delta Range) of Alaska. He apparently was high marking with his snowmachine on a steep side-slope in the area and then stopped his machine at the top of a narrow ridge near the 7,000 elevation level. When he stopped, the cornice he was standing on broke away and carried him and his machine 1300 vertical feet down the other side. In its descent, the force of the moving snow, triggered a second avalanche, which buried the victim under approximately 6 feet of dense wet snow. The man died from severe trauma and was recovered by the Alaska State Troopers later that day. A nearly identical accident with the same results happened in the same area on April 3, 1993. No body was ever found from that event.
Doug Fesler, Alaska Mountain Safety Center, Inc.
Fatal Heliskiing accident 97-03-31 near Atlin, BC, which is in the NW corner of the Province, near the Yukon/Alaska border. A group of 5 clients and one guide were skiing. The guide and one client had already skied down. When the third client began to ski, a slide propegated on the slope, carrying the person down and completely burying him. A second slide was triggered remotely by the first. This slide hit the guide and client waiting at the bottom.
The person buried by the first slide was found and subsequently recovered in hospital. The guide and client hit by the second slide were pronounced dead upon arrival at hospital. Very few details are available about the avalanches, but they were reported to be recent storm snow running on a crust. The snowpack for the general area was reported to be shallow, 60 to 100cm depth on average.
Evan Manners Canadian Avalanche Association
Fatal avalanche involving snowmobiler in Lange Creek, near Golden, BC. A group of snowmobilers were riding in the Lange Creek drainage on 97-03-30. Four were taking turns high pointing on a slope, going one at a time. One person triggered a slab, which buried the person and partly buried the snowmobile. His three companions waiting at the bottom of the slope managed to run out of the way of the avalanche, which hit and damaged their snowmobiles parked in the path. None of the people carried any self rescue equipment, but a nearby group were well equipped and quickly organized a coarse probe line to search for the missing person. One of the well equipped group had an emergency radio, and contacted rescue authorities. Within 1 hour of the avalanche, a trained search dog and rescue professionals began to arrive by helicopter. The person was found by search dog 3 hours and 10 minutes after he was buried under more than two metres of very dense avalanche debris. He was found 40 metres from his snowmobile, and did not survive the burial.
The avalanche was triggered at 14:34 in the afternoon and was a class 3.0 dry slab, West aspect, start zone at 2560 metres elevation, with a slope angle of 35-40 degrees, 300 metres wide, and running 300 metres downslope. The slide began on a rain crust under storm snow which fell March 20, and stepped down into lower snowpack instabilities as it ran. Failure depth averaged 2 metres for the majority of the slide.
Rescue teams had responded to an avalanche involving a snowmobiler in the same general area the day before, although that time the person was only partly buried and survived.
Evan Manners Canadian Avalanche Association
San Francisco Chronicle, Carolyne Zinko, Peninsula Bureau
An Atherton man heli-skiing in the Canadian Rockies died when he was sent flying over a cliff by an avalanche traveling at an estimated 200 miles per hour, authorities said yesterday.
Theodore Purcell, 58, was buried in 15 feet of snow along with George Broenner, 50, of Geneva, on Saturday in a slide north of Nakusp in the Selkirk range, about 400 miles east of Vancouver, British Columbia, according to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Broenner was also killed.
Purcell and his sons, Theodore Jr., 28, of Menlo Park, and Bill, 25, of Sun Valley, Idaho, were among a group of 30 on the outing, in which helicopters drop skiers on mountaintops in remote terrain and pick them up at the bottom. Groups are accompanied by guides, and skiiers are outfitted with tracking devices and shovels in case of emergency.
Theodore Purcell Jr., who helped dig his father out, said he was at the top of the mountain and his father was in the middle of the run when the avalanche occurred.
Some in the group, including Bill Purcell, were in a helicopter on the way to another run. Those still on the mountainside set off in a desperate attempt to rescue the buried men.
``I was heaving and crying and frantically digging with the guides for 45 minutes knowing it was my dad and looking up at the cliff and knowing there was no way he could have lived through it,'' said Theodore Purcell Jr. ``We don't think he suffered.''
Purcell, a native of San Francisco, was a graduate of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London, Conn. He was a supervising engineer for BART on its San Francisco International Airport extension project,and previously worked as an engineer for Tudor Engineering Co.
Along with his sons, Purcell is survived by his wife, Patricia, of Atherton.
Funeral arrangements are pending under the direction of Roller & Hapgood & Tinney, Palo Alto.
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