Rescue crews dig through debris Sunday searching for avalanche victims. (Photo courtesy of Jordan White/Flathead County Sheriff's Office)

Tsunami of ice, snow buries three: Event left bowl below looking like bomb crater
Posted: Tuesday, Jan 17, 2006 - 08:46:31 am PST
By CHERY SABOL
The Daily Inter Lake

An avalanche that swept down Red Meadow Peak on Saturday afternoon was so powerful it blew water and fish out of Red Meadow Lake below. It killed two of three snowmobilers who were buried in it.

Flathead County Undersheriff and deputy coroner Mike Meehan said Christopher Schmalz, 21, of Kalispell, died of injuries in the avalanche. Danelle Bloom, 22, of Kalispell died of suffocation beneath the snow.

A party of other snowmobilers rescued Dan Kenfield, 30, of Kalispell. They said he was buried about 6 feet deep when they dug him out.

The avalanche happened on the south side of Red Meadow Lake in an event that was so swift and violent it left the bowl below looking “more like a bomb crater,” according to deputy sheriff and search-and-rescue coordinator Tom Snyder’s reports from searchers.

Stan Bones of the Forest Service-Glacier Country Avalanche Center said weather leading up to the avalanche was a week of heavy, dense snowfall, unseasonably warm weather and strong west winds.

The avalanche and its accompanying air blast was carried full-force onto the lake, Bones said.

“The shock wave crushed the snow and ice surface across the entire lake and caused a tidal wave” on the north shore, he reported. The focus of that “tsunami of water, snow and ice” was the northeastern corner where the victims stood, according to Bones.

Schmalz’ body was located Saturday. Rescuers said he was probably on the north side of the lake when the avalanche hit.

Saturday’s search for Bloom was abbreviated because it was getting dark by the time rescuers were notified of the calamity. By Sunday morning, a vast collection of people joined forces from North Valley Search and Rescue, Flathead Search and Rescue, Nordic Ski Patrol, Department of State Lands, Forest Service, Glacier National Park, Valhalla Adventures, and the Sheriff’s Office, Snyder said.

Communication was a problem in the area north of Olney, where even a satellite phone was unreliable, he said.

That wasn’t the only difficulty.

The avalanche knocked down trees and the lake-saturated snow created balls of ice the size of cars and trucks, said sheriff’s deputy and searcher Jordan White. Searchers using probing poles in snow as deep as 20 feet hit ice and trees under the surface. The avalanche had compressed snow “like concrete” around the items buried below and stretched out for a half mile.

Rescuers had an area about a quarter-mile square in which they think Bloom was buried. They knew where she and Kenfield had stood before the avalanche swept them away and they knew that Kenfield had been hurtled 80 to 100 yards from there.

A member of Nordic Ski Patrol reportedly found Bloom’s body beneath about 10 feet of snow after a search that lasted for about five hours.

Bones said the area has become a popular snowmobiling destination, and “an avalanche the size of Saturday’s release had never been observed.”