Man dies in avalanche

By PHIL WHITE
Star-Tribune correspondent

LARAMIE -- A South Dakota man killed in an avalanche high in the Medicine Bow Mountains Wednesday afternoon died of a broken neck, perhaps caused by a collision with his vehicle during the avalanche, Albany County authorities said Thursday.

Sheriff Jim Pond said Dale Wagner, about 40, was one of eight friends from Miller, S.D., snowmobiling along the side of the French Creek valley about half a mile from scenic Lake Marie at the base of the Medicine Bow Peak ridge. Three other riders and their machines were also swept down and buried by the avalanche, but those three suffered very minor injuries, Pond said.

Wagner was reached quickly by his companions and thus his death was not from suffocation, Coroner Tom Furgeson said.

Pond said the area was not closed to snowmobiling. "But they were traversing the steep edge on the west side of the drainage, and we believe that's what triggered the avalanche. They were 'side-sloping' it."

Pond said there was no indication of illegal activity or foul play.

Furgeson said X-rays taken Wednesday evening showed Wagner suffered a spinal subluxation in the neck and a crushing injury in the rib cage. He said no autopsy was performed and no inquest would be scheduled.

"The initial indications are that possibly during the slide he had an interaction with his snow machine," Pond said.

The sheriff's office received a call about the accident at 2:11 p.m. Wednesday. Deputies, along with members of the Nordic Ski Patrol and other volunteers, "quickly located the area of the slide," a press release from the sheriff's office said.

Searchers located the three survivors of the slide, Ryan Wagner, 20, a nephew of the deceased, Dustin Arthur, 28, and Riley Pugh, 22.

The four companions not involved in the slide "were slightly ahead of the others going up the valley," Pond said. "They didn't witness it, but they heard it take off."

Those four were identified as Gary Wagner, 46, the deceased's brother, Brian Bertsch, 40, Eric Bertsch, 43, and Todd Beckett, 43.

Pond said he believes they started their snowmobile adventure from the Snowy Mountain Lodge along State Highway 130 several miles below the accident site.

Both officials said their investigations were continuing Thursday afternoon.

"My deputy, Jennifer Graham, is up there as we speak with search and rescue people to see what the scene looks like and what occurred and take photos," Furgeson said. "We were unable to get to the site last night. We were informed that the folks down there were having trouble getting out. It was dark and treacherous, so we returned to Snowy Mountain Lodge and waited for them to bring the body out."

The body was brought to Laramie at about 8 p.m. Wednesday and was released to the family Thursday morning.

Furgeson said he spoke briefly with the other members of the party at the lodge. "They were in visibly bad shape emotionally, very shaken up," he said.

Pond said the county's search and rescue team was called out on an unrelated missing snowmobiler report at 10:15 Wednesday evening.

"That person went out alone from about the same location as the other party and didn't return on time," Pond said. A search was initiated at 6 a.m. Thursday.

Pond said the missing individual was Jack Kimble, 21, of Laramie.

"He left by himself and got his machine stuck, so he spent the night in the woods. He had enough survival equipment to endure the night, and he used his snow machine to keep him warm during the night."

Kimble was able to extricate his machine in the morning and rode it out at about 11 a.m., Pond said.

Pond said there have been several avalanche or snowmobile-involved fatalities in this area during the past five or six years.

"Two years ago on Christmas Day we had a fatality, a lone snowmobiler who got stuck in a creek and attempted to walk out," he said. "He died of hypothermia. That was also in this same area of the mountains."

Another fatality occurred when a lone snowmobiler wrecked near Medicine Bow Peak, Pond said, and a third happened along State Highway 230 near Mountain Home, along the border with Colorado. A husband riding a snowmobile came over a hill and struck the one his wife was driving, killing her.

A cross-country skier was killed in an avalanche along Centennial Ridge several years ago, he said.

The sheriff said that before heading into the mountains in this area, all winter recreationists should check snow conditions with the ski patrol people at nearby ski areas and also check avalanche information sites on the Internet. Trail maps are available which show potential avalanche areas, he said.

According to the Colorado Avalanche Information Center, Wednesday's fatality was the first avalanche-related death in Wyoming this winter. Three people were killed in snow slides in the state last winter.

Statistics compiled by the center show that deaths to snowmobilers in avalanches have risen sharply in the past 15 years, approaching the level of avalanche deaths suffered by out-of-bounds backcountry skiers and climbers-hikers.

During the past 10 years, an average of 25 people have died in avalanches in the United States each year, the center's reports indicate.