According to authorities, the conditions are still too risky to attempt to collect the bodies of the three climbers who died in an avalanche on Colchuck Peak in Washington state last weekend.
According to the Chelan County Sheriff’s Office, two avalanche experts attempted to reach the location on Wednesday but were unable to do so owing to the possibility of more slides. They claimed that over 20 inches of snow had fallen in the region during the previous few days, significantly hampering any rescue operations.
Sheriff’s Sgt. Jason Reinfeld said it was too foggy on Thursday for the sheriff’s office to dispatch a helicopter to survey the location.
The victims were Yun Park, 66, of Palisades Park, New Jersey, a 66-year-old man from Bayside, New York, and Seong Cho, a 54-year-old male Korean citizen from West Hartford, Connecticut. According to the sheriff’s office, they belonged to a mountaineering club with its headquarters in New York.
They perished on Sunday when climbing a treacherous, snow-covered gully on Colchuck Peak, an 8,705-foot (2,653-meter) mountain located approximately 70 miles (115 kilometers) east of Seattle. Their party’s fourth member was also entangled in the slide but only sustained minor wounds and was able to confirm that the three had perished before more avalanches covered the bodies.
The avalanche was the deadliest in the United States since an avalanche in Utah two years ago that claimed the lives of four backcountry skiers.
