Posted BY: Bill | NwoReport
A deadly avalanche took the lives of three climbers who were scaling an 8,000-foot peak in Washington’s Cascade Mountains before three additional slides buried them.
A 66-year-old man from New Jersey, a 53-year-old man from Connecticut, and a 60-year-old woman from New York died on Washington’s Cascade Mountain after one member of their six-person climbing group triggered an avalanche around 1 pm on Sunday. It is unclear what they did to trigger it.
Chelan County Sheriff’s Office said they were ‘attempting to climb the Northeast Couloir of Colchuck Peak,’ near Leavenworth when four of them were ‘swept down’ approximately 500 feet.
The three who died passed away from ‘trauma sustained in the fall,’ after three additional slides buried them within an hour of the initial one, according to the Chelan County Sheriff’s Office. The fourth climber, 56, of New York, sustained non-life-threatening injuries and hiked back up to the base camp to meet the two others, 50, of New York, and 36, of New Jersey. A seventh member, who had stayed behind, was also at camp.
None of the climbers have been publicly named.
The last most deadly avalanche in the US took place in 2021 at Wilson Glade in Mill Creek Canyon, Utah, killing four.
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After arriving at camp, the three decided to send their seventh member, 53 – who had stayed behind at the camp on Sunday – for help, where he informed the Sheriff’s Office about the group’s experience around 8 am the next morning.
Twenty-two rescuers responded to the scene, but determined it was ‘too hazardous to continue to the deceased climbers.’
The surviving members were rescued from their camp roughly 24 hours after the avalanche occurred.
Rescuers have not been able to retrieve the body as conditions remain dangerous. The Sheriff’s Office is working with the Northwest Avalanche Center to ‘assist in a recovery plan.’
‘We also had some pretty significant snowfall overnight in the area as well as high winds,’ Sergeant Jason Reinfeld told Komo News.
Experts are now warning climbers to always look at the forecast prior to going climbing and to carry an avalanche kit – which usually consists of a transceiver, a snow probe, and a shovel.
