REVELSTOKE, B.C. – Less than a day after a devastating avalanche killed at least two people in eastern British Columbia, survivors told harrowing stories of being swept up by the falling snow as others described the chaos and panic as they searched for their friends.
There were about 200 people gathered on Revelstoke’s Boulder Mountain to watch the annual Big Iron Shootout – an unsanctioned snowmobile event – when the avalanche struck, around 3:30 p.m. local time Saturday.
Witnesses said the avalanche was triggered by a snowmobiler "high marking” as part of a competition between riders on the souped-up machines to see who could drive the highest up the mountain.
"It just completely wiped out a group of 150 or 200 snowmobilers," said Greg Blair, who saw the avalanche coming and fled on his snowmobile. "Everybody just disappeared – tossed, thrown, taken with the snow. The amount of snow that came down was unbelievable."
Nathan Knox said he was swept up in the avalanche and then “spit out.”
"It’s like you’re in a big blender," the snowmobiler said.
Witnesses said they heard people screaming as they frantically searched amid the wreckage of snowmobiles littered in the snow.
As the chaos subsided, survivors organized a line and worked methodically to find missing people, sticking probes into the snow and digging.
Most trapped people were found alive, but two were dead.
Steve Langevin found one of the bodies buried in the snow.
"There’s no word to describe this," he said.
In the panic immediately following the avalanche, he said one father was desperately yelling for his missing teenage son, who was found alive hundreds of metres away down a gully.
Several participants in the unsanctioned event said they knew the avalanche risk was high, but were enticed by the sunny weather and the metre of fresh snow.
One longtime snowmobiler said that Boulder Mountain is considered one of the safer areas. Derek Blair said he has snowmobiled through the area more than 800 times and he’s never witnessed anything like what happened Saturday.
"It really is an area just not known for being dangerous. It’s known for being one of the best spots in the world that you can go to," he said.
On Sunday, search-and-rescue workers continued their ground search after the deadly avalanche that injured at least 30 people.
RCMP Cpl. Dan Moskaluk said late Sunday afternoon that everyone who was on the Mounties’ list had been accounted for.
“We’ve checked off all our names off the list,” he said. “But there may be people who were never on it so the search is continuing.”
Greg Johnson, a Revelstoke-based avalanche forecaster with the Canadian Avalanche Association, said searchers were racing the clock if there was anyone still trapped alive under the snow.
“Time is running out if anyone is alive in the debris,” he said Sunday afternoon. “The snow at the base of the mountain is 30 feet deep. There is all sorts of debris. Parts of trees. Parts of snowmobiles. It’s a mess.”
The avalanche left one person in critical condition and three others are in serious condition in area hospitals.
Nineteen people had been released from hospital, police said.
Revelstoke is located in eastern British Columbia, approximately 550 kilometres northeast of Vancouver and 400 kilometres west of Calgary.
RCMP officers visited every hotel and motel in the town on Saturday evening trying to find people who were at the unsanctioned event.
“A lot of these people were traumatized,” a local police officer said after canvassing the hotels. “Grown men were hugging and crying. It was unreal.”
Mark Shaede, who witnessed the avalanche from afar and rushed in to help search for fellow snowmobilers, said the snow appeared six to 12 metres deep.
“It was too deep to probe,” said Shaede, president of Revelstoke Snowmobile Tours.”It’s massively huge. We had steel probes we put together that were maybe three or four metres in length. We weren’t even close to getting to the bottom.”
“We found some snowmobiles with our probes, and those were anywhere from three to seven metres down. And we couldn’t get to some of them.”
The Big Iron Shootout is an annual event on four areas of Boulder Mountain – the super bowl, sugar bowl, bullpen and turbo bowl.
The competition in past years typically involved 10 teams of 11 riders who compete in the extreme events, racing up the side of the mountain and pulling jumps and stunts.
The event has caused controversy within the local sledding community for the approximately four years it has operated, said Revelstoke Coun. Steve Bender, who also acts as the city’s liaison with local snowmobiling groups.
“The Big Iron Shootout is where people come from quite distant areas to bring very powerful, souped-up machines and to see how far they can climb up a big mountain. It’s extreme high marking,” he said.
“There have been concerns with it not being covered properly for safety,” Bender added.
B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell thanked the rescuers on Sunday, calling the avalanche a “terrible tragedy.”
“I want to commend the efforts of rescue personnel and volunteers who quickly responded to those in need and prevented further tragedies,” Campbell said in a news release.
Two investigations – by the Revelstoke RCMP and the B.C. Coroners Service – are underway to determine “the causal factors and what exactly took place,” Moskaluk said.
The avalanche struck just hours after the Canadian Avalanche Centre issued a special warning for Saturday and Sunday, noting avalanche risk is very high for the Kootenay-Boundary area, along with the southern Selkirk and Monashee Mountains and the Southern Chilcotin Mountains north of Whistler.
There have been at least 10 avalanches in the Kootenay-Boundary area since Friday, as snow continues to pile up, creating weak layers in the snowpack that can cause major slides.
Calgary Herald, Vancouver Province, Global News and Canwest News Service
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