Skiers unharmed after rescue operation in Missions
Issue Date: 3/4/2010
Last Updated: 12/22/2014 2:46:52 PM |
By
Melea Burke
ST. IGNATIUS — A large rescue operation prompted by an early-morning distress call from three backcountry skiers Thursday ended safely after search and rescue teams located the skiers and monitored their progress down the mountain via radio.
The initial report of the distressed skiers, who were high on St. Mary’s Peak in the Missions, came through Flathead County Search and Rescue. A Columbia Falls man who was a friend of the skiers got a phone call at around 6 a.m. from his friend, informing him that blizzard conditions Wednesday afternoon had forced the three to camp on top of the mountain at about 9,500 feet. When the three skiers — a 16-year-old boy, his father and another man, both in their 40s — awoke Thursday morning, their tent was nearly buried under several feet of snow. The father expressed concern that his son, who was starting to lose feeling in his extremities, was going to “crash,” explained Monte Jenkins, public information officer for Lake County Search and Rescue.
“It appeared to the dad that the boy was becoming hypothermic, somewhat,” Jenkins said.
As the three skiers, who were all from Kalispell, started down the mountain, a rescue operation was quickly staged at the St. Ignatius Airport. More than 40 supporters from the Lake County Sheriff’s Office, search and rescue teams from Lake and Flathead counties, Tribal Fish and Game and Mission Valley Ambulance prepared for a possible rescue attempt.
A helicopter search and rescue team from Malmstrom Air Force Base in Great Falls was also on standby, according to Sheriff’s Deputy Ryan Funke, who led the rescue effort.
Just after 11:30 a.m., the crew of a Life Flight helicopter from St. Patrick’s Hospital in Missoula spotted the skiers high on an eastern ridge of the mountain. After the helicopter dropped a bag with emergency supplies and a radio to the skiers, the three reported that they were OK to continue down to St. Mary’s Lake. They arrived safely, but exhausted and hungry, about three hours later, Jenkins said.
At a debriefing at the airport command center, the leader of the ski group said he had completed the route the three had planned to take five times before — if all had gone according to plan, the skiers would have crossed into the Swan Valley where a friend was going to pick them up. But severe weather conditions quickly changed their plans, and they “realized we did not have control of the situation.”
Jenkins said in talking with the skiers, they apparently had all the equipment necessary for survival and said they were all experienced backcountry skiers. But “conditions change quickly in an alpine environment … you never know for sure what you’re going to encounter,” Jenkins said.
The Life Flight crew and the skiers both reported that visibility on the ridge was very poor, which was a big challenge for both groups, Jenkins noted. In talking with the helicopter pilot, if the crew hadn’t sighted the skiers when they did, cloud cover would have prevented visual contact.
“We were all very fortunate that they had that window of opportunity to drop the bag,” Jenkins said.
Although the situation turned out well, Jenkins noted that the response was appropriate, as the situation could have worsened quickly in the alpine conditions.
“You can’t plan for a happy ending every time,” he said.
