Avalanches top state's list of deadly natural disasters

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Northwest avalanches are a growing, equal-opportunity killer.

As more people venture into snowy backcountry areas, accident and death tolls have spiked in recent years.

Avalanches now kill more people in Washington than any other natural disaster. And victims range from complete neophytes to certified experts.

This winter has been no different.

The same snowstorm responsible for the slide that struck three Western Washington University students Dec. 12 claimed another life in the Cascades the next day, when 38-year-old Suzy Greene of Seattle, snowshoeing in Alpental Valley near Snoqualmie Pass, was swept under and buried. Her body was not recovered for nearly a week.

Less than a week later, snowmobiler Corey McDougall, 31, of Wenatchee, was buried and killed while "high-marking" — climbing as high as the machine will go before bogging down — on the southeast flank of Navajo Peak, in the Blewett Pass area.

All three deaths occurred in areas where avalanche danger was listed as at least "considerable" by the Northwest Weather and Avalanche Center, which monitors a string of Cascade weather stations and issues detailed daily avalanche forecasts.

But as recent events suggest, even highly trained adventurers with the latest equipment and forecasts can be claimed by snowslides.

On Feb. 13, three experienced local mountaineers, John Miner, 53, James Andrues, 66, and Russ Howard, 42, died when an avalanche swept them off an ice waterfall in Canada's Banff National Park.

More than 400 people have died in U.S. avalanches since 1985; Washington accounted for 24 of those deaths, 18 in the past seven years alone, according to the Avalanche Center. The state ranks sixth in the nation for avalanche deaths, behind Colorado, Alaska, Utah, Montana and Wyoming. (The most frequently killed user group: snowmobilers.)
 
British Columbia, with a very active backcountry-travel industry, has a particularly ugly avalanche record of late, with a record 28 deaths last winter alone.

None of those totals includes the countless backcountry travelers who escape avalanches nearly every week in Northwest mountains — and fail to file a report.

"The last few years, we've had some miracles happening," said Mark Moore, the Avalanche Center's director. "We've had more lucky people than fatalities."

Survivors who fail to file reports with park rangers, ski patrols or law enforcement might be doing a disservice to themselves and others, officials say: The more avalanche reports are recorded, the better case safety officials can make to better educate the public.

"We're trying to encourage more people to give us a report," Moore said. "We think we're only looking at the tip of an iceberg."

— Ron Judd, Seattle Times staff reporter

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company