Mon, Sep 6, 2010
Tacoma Mountain Rescue

Body recovery of 3 Lost Snowboarders

Pierce, WA
2008-06-22

Mission Report by Tyler Severy

Operations Chairman Prelimanary report. The Unit was contacted by the Pierce County DEM to Provide 5 members to recover the bodies of 3 lost Snow boarders. They were to meet at the Crystal Mountain Ski Resort at 0700 and be flown to the site by the King County Helicopter Guardian 2.  Friends of the three took advantage of melting snow and searched Saturday in the area where they disappeared, They found the bodies of the three snowboarders who had been missing since early December in the Cascades near Crystal Mountain, a skiing area northeast of Mount Rainier in Washington state's Cascade Range. Autopsies have not been performed, but searchers theorize the three were killed by an avalanche. Heavy, wet snow caused dozens of avalanches in the area last year.


We were called by PCSD to assist in the removal of the three lost snowboarders from last year.  The plan was for a Helo qualified team to be inserted to an LZ below the location of the bodies.  Weather delayed us for several hours until King County could get their aircraft up to Crystal.  There were not enough seats on board to make the flight for the five of us so it ended up that Bill Cassio and I go to see if the Helo could be landed where he anticipated.  High winds forced us into a hoist operation in which Bill, Pete from KCSD and myself were hoisted out.  We dug out and packaged the bodies and gear then did several hoist operations with two separate flights to get them all on board.  We left the parking lot around  2:30 and were back by 4:30.  A great job to all involved.

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