COOKE CITY, Mont. (news agencies) — As Wesley Mlaskoch motored his snowmobile across a mountain in the Montana backcountry, the slope above him collapsed into a thick slab and began rushing down the hillside.
He had triggered an avalanche. Within seconds, the fury of accelerating snow flipped the snowmobile on top of him, threatening to bury Mlaskoch in the slide’s debris.
The Willow River, Minnesota, man survived the recent accident near Yellowstone National Park after pulling a cord on his backpack to trigger an inflatable airbag specially designed for avalanches. It floated him higher in the moving white torrent so his head stayed above the surface as he came to a stop. His brother and several friends scrambled up the slope and used shovels to dig him out, according to Mlaskoch and the others.
He was shaken up but not hurt, and by the next morning, details of his misadventure were posted online as yet another cautionary tale by the Gallatin National Forest Avalanche Center, one of many organizations working around the U.S. to forecast avalanche conditions and try to prevent accidents that kill about 30 people a year on average. Four people have died so far this winter, including one in a rare slide within the boundaries of a Lake Tahoe ski resort and skiers in backcountry areas of Idaho, Colorado and Wyoming.
“I remember when I first started coming here I was cocky, like ‘It’s not going to happen to me,’” Mlaskoch said, sitting on his snowmobile back in Cooke City, Montana, reliving his brush with tragedy. “Then two hours into our first ride on our first day, it went south.”
Avalanche safety specialists say their job has become more difficult in recent years as climate change brings extreme weather and surging numbers of skiers, snowboarders and snowmobilers visit backcountry areas since the pandemic.
More people means more chances to trigger fatal avalanches despite technological advances in safety equipment, including the airbag that saved Mlaskoch and kept him off the death tally for Cooke City. Avalanches in the area have killed 22 snowmobilers and 2 skiers since 1998, making it one of the deadliest locations for snowslides in the U.S.
Experts say the potential for hazardous avalanches has set in for the winter for many mountain ranges. Scant snowfall across much of the U.S. West early in the season created an unstable layer at the bottom of the snowpack. That dangerous condition is likely to persist for months, said Doug Chabot, director of the Gallatin National Forest Avalanche Center.