Eight snowmobilers died in a tragic series of avalanches South East of Fernie due to the regions most dangerous snowpack in years. A shallow snowpack with extreme cold temperatures with new snow on top created the hazard.  The snowmobilers were prepared for avalanche rescue however the complexity and magnitude of the slides was devastating.

The Canadian Avalanche Centre raised the awareness forecast to High a few hours following the accident.

The dead have been identified as Warren Rothel, Thomas Talarico, Kane Rusnak, Danny Bjarnason, Leonard Stier and his son Michael Stier, Kurt Kabel and Blaine Wilson.

A candlelight vigil was held Monday night in Sparwood as a town faced a tragic end to days of searching.

Here ia an edited version of remarks made by Jeff Adams as he described the plight of snowmobilers trapped Sunday by a series of avalanches South of Fernie:

“We were riding in the bottom of the bowl. No one was climbing, no one was high-marking.

At approximately 1:40 in the afternoon, Mike Stier was stuck at the base of the mountain, getting his sled out when the first slide hit us.

Everybody was down at the bottom, all scattering, running. I stood and watched Mike so I wouldn’t lose sight of him because I knew he was going to be buried, and little did I know I ended up being buried myself.

After being under the snow for a minute or two Danny [Bjarnson] dug me out. I got up and I asked ‘Who are we missing?’ He said ‘Mike.’

I took off all my gear, got my shovel out, my probe, flipped my Pieps (locator/transmitter) over to search and we went looking for Mike.

We located Mike. We started digging and that’s when the second group of four guys showed up, came right up to where we were digging. They all jumped off their sleds, started digging, too.

At approximately 2 o’clock Kurt Kabel pushed 911 on his spot transmitter and Jeremy Rusnak was getting geared up to go out for help. At approximately 2:05 we heard “crack” and that’s when the second slide hit us, burying all 11 of us.

I managed to float almost to the surface. When I opened my eyes I could see daylight. I was digging. I managed to get my mouth free. I was already choking. I took a few breaths.

After about five minutes of struggling, I got myself out. I looked around and realized there wasn’t anybody else. I couldn’t see any sleds, no gear, nothing.

I yelled. I heard somebody yell back, and that’s when I went and found Jeremy [Rusnak]. I had no gloves, no toque. I started digging Jeremy out. It took about 15 minutes to get him out. I got him out and then Jeremy stood up and yelled again and we heard one more person.

That’s when we found James [Drake]. We were digging James out and we heard a crack again and we said, ‘Sorry James, we gotta run.’ And as we were running away from James [he yelled] ‘Don’t leave me here! Don’t leave me here!’ We kept saying, ‘We’re sorry.’

We sat off to the side and the slide never hit us in the area we were in. We just got the snow cloud. We went back in, finally got James out, pulled James off to the side.

I flipped my peeps back over, but the only signal I could get was Mike Stier’s and I knew it was too deep with no equipment to help him.

I took a quick look around. I couldn’t see anybody, couldn’t see no hands, feet sticking up. We contemplated trying to get the one snowmobile that wasn’t hit by the slide out.

That’s when we made the decision it’s not safe to go in there, and that’s when we had to make the gut-wrenching decision to leave our eight friends and start walking off the mountain.

After we walked for about 10 minutes or so, contemplating whether to go back, try to look one more time, I turned to look at the mountain. The whole centre of the mountain came down, burying everything again. So we just decided that our best bet was to keep walking.

I kept asking Jeremy what time it was, because I knew if the 911 call worked it wouldn’t be long for a helicopter.

The helicopter – we could see it circling around the slide area for about five minutes.

It started coming down the valley toward us. We thought everything was going to be OK. Then it went away from us, so we just decided to keep walking. We were trying to find a cabin.

We saw the helicopter come back over the mountain one more time. This time for some reason it just came straight at us and found us, picked all three of us up and took us out of there.”

For the 20 minute video of Jeff’s interview click here.