IDAHO: A Climbing Guide

Category: Avalanche

  • 1987 Death on Borah

    1987 Death on Borah

    In 1987, an experienced climber descending Mount Borah fell on the snowpack and lost control of his self-arrest. He landed just above a water chute/water-melt tunnel as the avalanche he triggered pushed him into the chute and buried him.

    Water Chutes/Water-Melt Tunnels

    When temperatures warm, water melts below the snow surface and flows in river-like patterns downhill. As the water flows, a tunnel of air forms and melts the snow from underneath. On steep slopes, and in areas with deep gullies, larger chutes/tunnels may form. Much like a crevasse, these chutes/tunnels may not be evident on the snow surface, though sometimes the snow appears thinner or is of a different color. You may also hear water flowing underneath as you near a chute/tunnel area. Like a crevasse, if the tunnel is large enough, a climber can fall through the weakened snow surface and be buried and/or swept by the water under the snow down the tunnel. A fall into the tunnel on a steep slope can also precipitate backfill of snow from above into the tunnel as the melting, weakened snow surface moves to stabilize itself.

    Water-melt tunnels can be large permanent features below established glaciers and year-round snowfields, or short-lived, more shallow features on seasonal snowfields. Accidents and fatalities from falling into water-melt chutes/tunnels are rare, though these melt features are common. However, risk a chute/tunnel posses to a climber is related to a multitude of factors including: the steepness of the slope, the thickness of the snowpack, the terrain below the snow, the amount of melting occurring, whether a tunnel already exists or is forming, and if a chute/tunnel is large enough and close enough to the surface to collapse and fall into.

    An important lesson from this unfortunate accident is that water-melt chutes/tunnels are features that may exist under the snowpack. Take this possibility into account when choosing a descent path and when searching for a missing team member.

    Here are links to a few photos of chutes/tunnels from places outside of Idaho that gives you an idea of what the feature looks like to help you assess this risk on your climbs.

    The accident report was published by the American Alpine Club (AAC) in Accidents in North American Mountaineering, 1988. Read the full article below, or click on the title to read it on the AAC website.

    FALL ON SNOW, LOSS OF CONTROL—VOLUNTARY GLISSADE, AVALANCHE, INADEQUATE EQUIPMENT, WEATHER

    Idaho, Mount Borah

    On June 13, 1987, David Probst (38), who was a member of the Idaho Mountain Search and Rescue Unit for several years, was descending Mount Borah (3,950 meters) with three friends when he fell 150 meters to his death.

    Accident

    They had started late in the morning, around 0900. Knowing there was very little snow, they carried only one ice ax with them. They reached the summit at 1800. Then they started down and, when they reached the saddle between the summit and false summit, they changed to the Rock Creek descent. The first two, Linda Claiborne (30) and Ben Childlaw (35) with the ice ax, started ahead of Probst and Jennifer Smith (31). Probst used a rock as a dagger for control on the snow while Smith waited in the rocks above. Probst lost control while trying to self-arrest. He disappeared around a bend in the snowfield.

    At this time Claiborne and Childlaw were down at the fourth snowfield. They saw a large mass of snow coming down the chute, but no sign of anyone. They climbed back up to Smith. At this point they searched for Probst and, finding his hat at the second snowfield, they started probing for him. They also probed the first snowfield but stopped when it got too dark to work. They spent ten hours climbing down and hiking out for help.

    The local sheriff’s rescue group from Mackay responded but were initially not able to get to the victim’s location because they had no experience or equipment. The 3-person team arrived wearing tennis shoes and jeans, carrying one rope and a carton of Pepsi-Cola. A deputy accompanied them. Idaho Mountain Rescue personnel were on hand at the staging area. The sheriff indicated that he would have his team go up the mountain and assess the situation first to see what resources were needed. As night neared, the sheriff got a MAST helicopter to drop sleeping bags and food for his team. The helicopter flew to 4700 meters and dropped the supplies. The supplies were well scattered after their 1250 meter descent.

    On June 15, an electrical storm hit, and the sheriff ordered everyone off the mountain, suspending the search until later in the week. The sheriff’s team and Idaho Mountain Rescue returned on June 19. The next day, June 20, rescue teams fine-probed the first snowfield. Course probes and tunnels were dug on the second field. An avalanche dog was used but alerted many times on the snowfields. When teams started searching snowfield three, the body was spotted under the snow above a water chute which Probst had slid into with the loose snow. [Sources: various newspaper reports; Larry Novak and Bob Meridith of Idaho Mountain Search and Rescue; and Merle King]

    Analysis

    The late start, an apparently festive group with an experienced leader, and a clear day that deteriorated late in the afternoon led to the circumstances that turned this situation around. Choosing a technical descent route without having adequate equipment put the group at risk. That Probst used a rock for an ice dagger for self-arrest aid indicates the level of concern he had.

    While it seems likely that Probst died quickly, the rescue response was apparently not handled properly. If the victim had survived the fall, he most likely would have died by the time he was finally reached. Technical rescue resources were available but do not appear to have been used appropriately. [Source: J. Williamson]

  • Death on Castle Peak

    Death on Castle Peak

    Fatal mountaineering accidents are rare in Idaho, but they do occur. Rarer still are fatalities from Summertime avalanches. Most people associate avalanches with Wintertime, and Winter is when most avalanches do occur. However, for climbers, it’s the Summertime avalanche that can be an overlooked risk.

    Stanley, Idaho resident Jared Spear died on Castle Peak in a rare Summertime avalanche. His friends discovered that he was missing and initiated a search. An air search located his truck at the Castle Peak trailhead on July 6 and spotted a fresh avalanche on Castle Peak. Jarad was an experienced snowboarder.

    Sawtooth National Forest Avalanche Center Report

    Saturday, July 2, 2005, a snowboarder (male, 31 years old) was killed while doing a solo, one-day ascent and snowboard descent of 11,815-foot Castle Peak. He was descending late in the afternoon and tracks show that he completed 3 or 4 turns below the summit and triggered a point release, wet slide that grew in size. The slide was triggered and ran in steep, rocky terrain and dropped over 1,000 feet. The debris consisted of snow, dirt, and many loose rocks that had been entrained in the slide, indicating a full-depth wet release. Deep posthole tracks were observed climbing up sections of the face so he was aware of the wet, loose nature of the snowpack.

    The victim was not buried and appeared to have died of trauma and exposure. He was reported missing on Wednesday, when he did not show up for work after the holiday weekend. His body was located Thursday morning (July 7) by a group of local friends and searchers and evacuated by Sawtooth Forest helicopter Thursday afternoon. The slide was on the North Face of the 11,815-foot peak and the victim was found at 10,600 feet.

    Although point release, wet slides are always a Summertime concern, the high mountain snowpack has been unusually loose and wet at high elevations this Summer. We have not seen the development of a typically denser Spring and Summer snowpack this year. This is due to a combination of a weak shallow snowpack throughout the entire Winter, large amounts of snow at high elevations during May and very poor overnight freezes since early June.  Reported by Janet Kellam, Director, Sawtooth National Forest Avalanche Center.

    Idaho Mountain Express and Guide Article

    Seve Benson of the Idaho Mountain Express and Guide  [Sun Valley’s retired newspaper (2014)] wrote the following article about the incident and the effort to create a Search and Rescue team as a result of Spear’s death. The full 2005 article is located below and also in the paper’s online archive, currently located here.

    Wednesday, July 27, 2005

    Stanley seeks to start search-and-rescue team

    Friends of deceased snowboarder criticize rescue effort

    By STEVE BENSON
    Express Staff Writer

    Friends of Jared Spear, a Stanley man who died after triggering a wet-snow avalanche on Castle Peak on July 2, are leading efforts to form an official search-and-rescue team in Custer County.

    During a meeting with local law enforcement agencies in Stanley on Monday morning, several of Spear’s friends criticized the Custer County Sheriff’s Department for its limited role in the search and recovery of Spear’s body from the peak in White Cloud Mountains.

    Spear’s friends were responsible for organizing the search and locating his body. They felt the Sheriff’s office could have done more in the early stages of the search and displayed poor communication throughout the ordeal. They also blasted Custer County Sheriff Tim Eikens for providing information to the media before members of the search party had conducted their own reports of the incident.

    Eikens commended the search party, but also reminded all in attendance that his office was not notified that Spear was missing until the afternoon of July 6. He added that his office did all it could under the circumstances. “Before we put anybody at risk (in a search process), we have to know all of the information and there wasn’t a lot of information,” he said, adding that he did not even know the identities of the people in the search party.

    Addressing the communication issue, Custer County Sheriff’s deputy Mike Talbot said it was not intentional as technical difficulties hampered radio communications. But Eikens did not want to argue about what happened and focused instead on how to improve search-and-rescue efforts in the future. “We’re here out of respect for Jared,” Eikens said. “We’re trying to make something positive out of something negative. “This is not fun, it’s a traumatic event … but we need to support each other, and get your people to become part of the team.”

    Custer County, unlike Blaine County, does not have an official search-and-rescue team that acts in conjunction with the Sheriff’s office. The search party—comprised of 10 of Spears friends—found his body in the early morning hours of July 7. Upon discovering he had been missing for several days, they organized an impromptu search party on the afternoon of July 6. A reconnaissance flight over the area on the afternoon of July 6 located Spear’s truck at a Castle Peak trailhead—deep in the White Cloud Mountains—and spotted avalanche debris from a large wet slide on the peak’s North Face. Not knowing whether Spear was alive or dead, the party coordinated an all-night effort that included travel on foot and motorbikes. Spear was found in a boulder field about a thousand feet below the summit. He was 31 years old.

    According to a report written by Sean Tajkowski, who was a member of the search party, the avalanche ran about a thousand feet through steep, rocky terrain. Tajkowski said Spear was never buried by the debris and was not immediately caught by the slide. He added that Spear filmed part of his descent with a hand-held video camera and that the recovered footage supports his conclusions.

    Pete Isner, Custer County Deputy Coroner and a member of the Stanley Police Department, said Spear died from trauma suffered in the slide. Isner said his investigation remains open since he has not received all of the information from the field, but he believes Spear died soon after the slide, squashing any rumors that he may have survived as long as 24-48 hours after the accident.

    Kirk Bachman, founder of Sawtooth Mountain Guides, acted as the coordinator of the search for Spear. He did not criticize the Sheriff’s office and expressed his support of the creation of a Custer County search-and-rescue team. He also commended Eikens for being supportive of such an endeavor. “The Sheriff’s office is the legal authority on any search and we want to work with you guys,” he said.

    Eikens said when he first came into office two years ago he tried to create a Custer County search-and-rescue team but found little interest from local residents. After three hours of discussion, which included the full reading of a separate report prepared by Bachman and Tajkowski, Talbot passed around search-and-rescue applications. Almost all of the dozen or so citizens in attendance filled out an application.

    Talbot encouraged those who wished only to lend resources, such as all-terrain vehicles, horses, boats or aircraft to search-and-rescue missions, to sign up and specify their potential contributions. “We’re moving in the right direction,” Bachman said during a break in the meeting. “We’ll hold more meetings and focus on training and better communication.”