Deadly Avalanche Hits N.H.

At least one person died Sunday after getting caught in an avalanche on Mount Washington.

Fish and Game Colonel Ron Alie says David McPhedran of Kents Hill, Maine, was climbing up a gully to ski down it with a friend when an avalanche swept over them just before one PM.

Aimee Reiter, also of Kents Hill, was buried up to her waist and was able to get out, but McPhedran was buried face down.

The 6,288-foot mountain is known as home to the world's worst weather and was the site of the highest windspeed ever recorded -- 231 mph on April 12, 1934.

A recorded message at the Appalachian Mountain Club recorded Sunday morning warns that the avalanche danger for the mountain's Tuckerman and Huntington ravines was high and that traveling on them was not recommended.

"The wind will be the driving force behind the inevitable avalanche cycle we know is coming. We expect things to get pretty exciting in the next 24 to 48 hours," the message said.

According to the club, the danger is due partly to more than a foot of snow that fell during a storm Friday night and Saturday, and by heavy winds expected to gust up to 50 mph Sunday. It's message said winds of only 20 mph can cause avalanches.

"When the winds pick up, a combination of blowing snow and high winds increase avalanche danger. Steep, snow-covered trails could make your trip very hazardous," the recording said.

Anna Porter, a weather observer at the Mount Washington Observatory, said the wind was blowing at 58 mph at the summit Sunday afternoon, with gusts of up to 64 mph. Visibility was 1/16 of a mile with blowing snow and freezing fog, she said, and the summit temperature was 3 degrees.

With heavy snowfall, high winds and rough weather conditions, Mount Washington is one of the few places in the East where avalanches are a danger.

During the last century, 126 people have died on Mount Washington, which is about one-fifth the size of Mount Everest.

Two Massachusetts men were killed after being buried in an avalanche in March 1996. The two were hiking up the Gulf of Slides to ski down.

Volunteer rescuer Albert Dow was killed in an avalanche in January 1982 while trying to help two ice-climbers who were stranded on Mount Washington for four days.

Last April, two men were injured after being swept 1,400 feet by an avalanche in Huntington Ravine on Mount Washington.

Hikers and skiers who attend a two-day workshop at the Appalachian Mountain Club visitor's center at Mount Washington each year are told their chances of dying within minutes of being fully buried by an avalanche are 25 percent.

The course also teaches that another 50 percent can be found alive within 25 minutes, but the chances decline after that.

Someone caught at the top of an avalanche has a good chance of surviving by holding onto a tree or the slope for the one or two seconds it takes the snow to pass by, instrucors tell the students.

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