One dead in avalanche on Mount Rainier

By Jennifer Sullivan
Seattle Times staff reporter

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Just after noon today, a search-and-rescue team recovered the body of Aaron Koester, 21, and a helicopter carried it off the mountain, said Lee Taylor, a spokeswoman for Mount Rainier National Park.

His climbing partner, Matt Little, 23, also of Monroe, survived the avalanche with no injuries, Taylor said.

The surviving climber notified park rangers at about 5 p.m Sunday that the pair had been walking through a crevasse near Disappointment Cleaver, on the southeast face of the mountain, when they were buried in snow about 1 p.m., said Patti Wold, another National Park spokeswoman.

After pulling himself out of the snow, Little used a two-way radio to contact a hunter who was talking on another frequency. From his location in Naches, the hunter notified authorities about Little and Koester. Little hiked to the Camp Muir ranger station, which is unmanned this time of year, and contacted authorities from there, said Taylor.

Koester and Little began their climb Friday and spent that night camped below Camp Muir. Little told rangers that the pair had had planned to summit the mountain, but when the weather worsened they decided to stay near Camp Muir, said Wold.

The climbers spent Saturday at Cadaver Gap, then hiked to Disappointment Cleaver on Sunday. The men have both climbed Mount Rainier and other Washington peaks in the past, said Wold. This climb was meant to be training for an ascent of Mount McKinley in Alaska.

Once at Disappointment Cleaver, the men decided to traverse a snow ramp into a crevasse. When they began walking on a second snow ramp, the avalanche hit, said Wold.

Koester was the fifth person to die on Mount Rainier this year.

Jennifer Sullivan: 206-464-8294 or jensullivan@seattletimes.com