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Backcountry allure may be tempting fate
By SCOTT SUNDE 
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
Kim P.J. Trinkl must have been in a skier's paradise earlier this week as he cut telemark turns into the heavy snow in the backcountry of Crystal Mountain.
The pleasure, however, was brief.
Trinkl became separated from a skiing companion. Ski Patrol members later found him after seeing parts of his skis sticking out from the heavy snow where Trinkl, 41, of Seattle, died.
An autopsy yesterday showed that he suffocated as he was buried headfirst in the snow.
His death is the third confirmed, and probably the fourth, this season in Western Washington, where ski areas can go a year or two without a single fatality. Searchers this week have been unable to find a snowboarder missing in the Mount Baker area, which would be the fourth death.
The ski areas had seven deaths in the previous 10 years.
Experts blame the deaths on any number of factors: bad luck, weather conditions that alternate icy snow with heavy powder and, most important of all, skiers and snowboarders who fail to heed safety warnings and to take proper safety precautions.
"Being in the outdoors has some risks to it," said Brian Merryman, a Rainier man who is on the board of the National Ski Patrol. "People who spend their time in a ski area and do the right things are pretty safe."
Operators of ski areas like to point to statistics that show skiing and snowboarding have fewer fatalities per participant than such outdoor pursuits as scuba diving, cycling and boating. Nationally, 22 skiers and four snowboarders were killed last season.
Most of those who die are men in their late teens to early 20s. It's the same age group that accounts for most of the nation's traffic fatalities.
The latest skiing fatality in Western Washington occurred Tuesday at Crystal Mountain.
Skiers and snowboarders who enter the ski area's two backcountry locations must pass through gates where signs urge them to ski with at least one partner and recommend that they carry a shovel and transceiver. The shovel can be used to dig out a partner, and the transceiver transmits a signal that allows skiers to find a buried partner.
Trinkl carried a transceiver, and he had a skiing partner. But their arrangement was apparently a loose one, said Paul Baugher, director of Crystal Mountain's Ski Patrol.
Trinkl apparently was an experienced skier well-known at Crystal Mountain, where he once worked, according to the Pierce County Medical Examiner's Office.
The partner last saw Trinkl at 2 p.m. Tuesday, but didn't report him missing until 10 a.m. Wednesday. Crystal officials said they didn't know why 20 hours passed before the friend reported Trinkl missing.
But Baugher said the passage of time may have been critical. The Ski Patrol gets 10 to 15 reports of missing skiers a day. It considers situations like Trinkl's, where skiers are missing in deep powder, as emergencies.
One of the dangers is falling into a so-called "tree well," a deep bank of snow around a tree, he said. Compounding the problem is that many snowboarders and telemarkers, including Trinkl, have equipment whose bindings don't release easily.
Trinkl ended up in a tree well.
"People go upside down. They get caught in the tree well and can't get out of their equipment," Baugher said.
If they have no partner, they must try to struggle out alone. "In deep powder you must ski with a partner," Baugher said. "Ski cautiously. You have to ski like a mountaineer. You have to carry shovels and transceivers."
After the Ski Patrol was alerted about Trinkl, it didn't take long to follow tracks to find him, Baugher said.
It was the second death this season at Crystal. On Dec. 7, a snowboarder died after falling into a creek. Baugher said heavy snow contributed to that death, too, covering up a creek that had running water in the backcountry.
The heavy snow also apparently caused another death this week. A
26-year-old Bellingham man took his snowboard out of Mount Baker's groomed trails into a spot where avalanche danger was high.
The search for the man has been suspended for several days because the threat of avalanche makes looking for him too dangerous, said Ron Peterson of the Whatcom Country Sheriff's Department.
In the past week, many spots on the western side of the Cascades had close to 7 feet of snow, said Mark Moore of the Northwest Weather and Avalanche Center.
The heavy snow atop weak layers of snow increased the possibility of slides.
"A lot of people, especially snowboarders and snowmobilers, are getting into steeper and steeper terrain and are not aware of avalanche dangers. I'm surprised that we haven't had more accidents in previous years. It's starting to catch up," Moore said.
Backcountry skiers and snowboarders also should heed temperatures, wind speed and precipitation, Moore said. An increase in any of those three can mean an increased risk of avalanche.
The avalanche center and U.S. Forest Service also have a hotline that skiers can call for forecasts. The number is 206-526-6677.
Baugher believes that the heavy snow has come in longer periods this year, making conditions more dangerous. At the same time, the other dangerous conditions for skiers -- fast, icy snow -- also has occurred over a longer period, he said.
Fast snow probably contributed to the death of a skier who ran into a tree recently on Oregon's Mount Hood and a snowboarder who died last week after going off a cliff at Snoqualmie Pass, Baugher said.
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