At about 3 p.m. Friday, March 1, the Boundary County Sheriffs Office received a distress call from a snowmobiler in the upper mountainous area of Pack River in the Hunt lake area. The caller said that his fellow snowmobiler had been caught in an avalanche and buried.
The caller was able to use his avalanche transmitter/ receiver to locate his fellow snowmobiler buried under about four feet of snow, but by the time he reached him the 54-year-old man from Bonner county was already deceased.
The survivor said he’d almost been caught in the same avalanche and was trying to outrun it on his snowmobile before he hit a tree.
He feared he was going to be hit by the avalanche, but it stopped a short distance from him.
Boundary Search and Rescue was already headed to an SOS call in an area north of Priest Lake, but those snowmobilers turned out to only being stuck and were able to get out and notify the Sheriff’s Office that they were ok and no longer needed assistance.
This allowed Boundary Search and Rescue to divert to the Upper Pack River call.
Law Enforcement and Search and Rescue are still working in this area of upper Pack River and ask that snowmobilers stay out of this area at this time, and to be aware of the avalanche dangers wherever they are riding.