Location of Kananaskis avalanche that killed two
In a job of routine life-or-death decisions, it's the tough call nobody wants to make.
As the sun winked below the Rockies, Mike Koppang and his skeleton search-and-rescue crew had a wrenching decision on their hands: remain beneath failing light and an unstable Kananaskis snow-pack searching for two men buried in an avalanche or play it safe and head for home.
Discovering one body and finding no trace of the other, they decided on the latter.
"It wasn't safe for us to be there any longer," said Mr. Koppang, a public safety specialist with Kananaskis Country, about the choice to leave two bodies on the hill. "It's definitely not a decision that allows you to sleep easily."
The emergency call had come in barely one hour earlier on that Saturday afternoon, sparking a chain of events that proved even the most capable rescuers and a lightning-quick response are sometimes no match for a deadly alignment of weather and geography.
At precisely six minutes after 4 p.m., the Kananaskis Public Safety office received a signal from a Spot GPS device, a one-way emergency transmitter that beams latitude and longitude.
"Given the conditions outside and the nature of the terrain, we were pretty sure we had an avalanche on our hands," said Mr. Koppang. "But we couldn't be sure."
Within minutes he'd scrounged a helicopter, a pilot and another rescuer. By 4:30 p.m., they were choppering over Kananaskis peaks heaving beneath a fresh dump of dense snow. The Spot co-ordinates pointed toward Burstall Pass, an area of pristine backcountry 100 kilometres southwest of Calgary popular for its close proximity to local roads.
That easy accessibility masks genuine risks. In 1995, an avalanche caught five skiers in the Pass. One man died. There have been a number of close calls in the years since, according to the Canadian Avalanche Centre.
Throughout January, the Canadian Avalanche Centre has been warning of a high avalanche risk throughout the Rockies. The risks intensified this weekend as warming temperatures, high winds and 50 centimetres of snow combined in a phenomenon known as slab development, where a dense slab of snow heaps upon a layer of weaker, lighter snow.
Similar top-heavy snowpacks formed upon mountains throughout eastern B.C. and western Alberta over the weekend, partially burying several skiers in Fernie and killing one man near Nelson. "Avalanche conditions are high from Calgary through to Vancouver right now," said John Kelly, operations manager at Canadian Avalanche Centre.
The pilot made several passes over Burstall. They could see a huge fracture in the snowline 2,400 metres up the east-facing slope, but no sign of life.
"We flew over the scene several times looking for any indication that someone had been caught," Mr. Koppang said. "On the third or fourth pass, we saw a glove."
They landed briefly and the two rescuers began digging around the glove. The pilot flew down the valley and found three people skiing out. They told the pilot they'd been trailing two men in their mid-forties by a few hundred metres when a 90-metre wide avalanche rumbled down the slope around 3:45 p.m., swallowing the two skiers. They searched for the men with probes and shovels. Neither was wearing a locator beacon. Finding nothing, the three skiers activated a Spot device.
Meanwhile, Mr. Koppang and his counterpart uncovered the first man. He was dead, his body roughly one metre below the snow. The western Alberta sun sets around 5 p.m. these days. As the day went dark, the three rescuers decided not to temp further tragedy. "It was too risky to leave anyone on site," said Mr. Koppang. "It was still snowing, still windy, the temperature was rising. It was not a place you want to be. We decided to put it off until morning."
Just before 9 a.m. on Sunday, the rescuers returned, this time with a few conservation officers and a Parks Canada avalanche dog.
The dog found the second body 50 metres away from the first.
The men have been identified as Mark and Rob Glaser, brothers and experienced outdoorsman from Calgary.
Mark was a senior manager in the oil and gas industry. Rob was a captain in the Calgary Fire Department.
The family issued a written statement saying the brothers were "loving husbands and fathers and will be greatly missed by their families and legions of friends. Both were seasoned backcountry hikers and skiers who shared a deep passion for the outdoors."
"It's tragic," said Mr. Kelly, of the Avalanche Centre. "We hope this offers an opportunity to galvanize peoples' attention and show the high backcountry risks that exist right now."