Avalanche in Canada kills three local veteran climbers

By Michael Ko and Sara Jean Green
Seattle Times staff reporters

	John Miner, 53, 30-year veteran of Redmond Police Department; taught avalanche safety courses.
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Miner, a Redmond police lieutenant who was the city's emergency-preparedness expert, even taught courses in avalanche safety.

Which made yesterday's news even more shocking to family and friends.

Miner, Andrues and another experienced sportsman and climber, Russ Howard, died after an avalanche on Thursday knocked them off an ice waterfall at Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada. The men were part of a group of about 10 climbers that took an ice-climbing vacation to the Canadian Rockies every February.

Andrues, 66, was a Pierce County sheriff's deputy from Tacoma. Howard, 42, was a Redmond Public Works traffic-signal technician from Edmonds. And Miner, 53, who worked in the Police Department for almost 30 years, was from Kenmore.

The three men were not wearing avalanche beacons, but it's not clear if beacons would have made a difference. The device is worn by climbers to help rescuers find them if trapped in an avalanche.

"If they thought they needed avalanche beacons, they would have been wearing them," said Gus Bush, operations chairman for Tacoma Mountain Rescue, explaining that the men were extremely meticulous and careful. "They've been in some hairy situations," Bush said. "They've dealt with extreme avalanche danger. They've been involved in those kinds of rescues."

	James Andrues, 66, Pierce County sheriff's deputy from Tacoma; scaled peaks around the world.

Most recently, Miner and Andrues helped in the search for Dan Witkowski, the Ellensburg skier who survived four nights without food and gear in the central Cascades. Witkowski's legs were amputated below the knees yesterday because of severe frostbite.

Thursday's accident occurred on Mount Wilson north of Lake Louise, said Parks Canada spokeswoman Shelley Humphries. Mount Wilson, 10,695 feet high, is a popular spot for ice climbers. Its high cliffs extend for nearly seven miles.

The search began about 9:30 p.m. Thursday when the three were reported missing by the rest of the group, Humphries said. A dozen park wardens with dogs and probes searched the avalanche debris at the bottom of the waterfall and found the bodies Thursday night and yesterday morning, she said.

In the past two days, Parks Canada had reported a considerable risk for avalanches in the area because of the prolonged sun exposure on the south slopes of the mountain, which caused warming temperatures.

In the early 1990s, Miner created a regional task force to combat Russian criminal organizations and trained officers in other West Coast departments how to go after them. He was recognized as a regional leader in pedestrian safety.

"The guy was going, going, going," Redmond Police Cmdr. Ed Billington recalled yesterday. "He had new ideas, creative ideas — he always thought out of the box."

For fun, Miner loaded up a backpack with 70 to 80 pounds of weight and ran up and down three flights of stairs at Redmond City Hall, Billington said.

Miner's fellow officers said he gave the impression of being a "curmudgeon" but could be a softie who helped old ladies move and played practical jokes. Last year, when Redmond officers were feeling the rainy-season blues, he decorated the office with three blow-up palm trees.

"He was so well respected throughout the entire department," said Redmond police Officer Stacey Holland. "He had so much knowledge. Talking to him was like going to the library."

Shann Rand, Andrues' ex-wife, said he had been climbing since the 1970s, and was "very cautious and very well-educated."

"He was not the kind of guy who would make a bad judgment call based on his own personal desire," she said.

Andrues' friends remembered him both as an athlete who competed in triathlons and kayaked almost every morning in Commencement Bay in Tacoma, and an academic who earned a doctorate in audiology, worked with deaf people and was fluent in American Sign Language.

"He was very confident in whatever he did; he was detail-oriented. That's why this had to be a freak thing," said friend Ken Jones, a local audiologist with Manning and Associates, who used to rock-climb with Andrues in Leavenworth.

	Russ Howard, 42, a traffic-signal technician for Redmond Public Works; "climbed all the time."

Andrues was a police officer in Rochester, N.Y., in the 1960s and was hired as a deputy by the Pierce County Sheriff's Office in 1997. In between, he worked as an audiologist at Mary Bridge Children's Hospital Speech and Hearing Center in Tacoma and at a bicycle shop in Federal Way.

Howard, who was born and raised in Spokane, graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in communications, said his supervisor, Jim Cooper, the transportation operations supervisor for the city of Redmond.

About a decade ago, Cooper said, Howard decided to get into the traffic-signal industry. He sold equipment that controls the operation of traffic signals, and then worked as a traffic-signal technician in Lynnwood. He was hired two years ago by Redmond Public Works.

Cooper said Howard, survived by his wife and four children, "climbed all the time, both summer and winter, (Mount) Baker, Rainier. He really knew his stuff." But this was his first trip to the Canadian Rockies with Miner and Andrues' group.

"Nobody was more careful than those two," Cooper said, referring to Howard and Miner. "It's hard to believe that those guys weren't extremely careful in whatever they were doing. I think it was just the wrong place at the wrong time."

Michael Ko: 206-515-5653 or mko@seattletimes.com. Sara Jean Green: 206.515.5653 or sgreen@seattletimes.com. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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