Monday, March 18, 2024

Asgaard Pass claims another victim

Three died in last six years while ‘glissading’ in same spot

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On June 3, a 19-year old Mercer Island man was presumed killed while glissading* at Asgaard Pass. By June 5, searchers had still been unable to locate the body of Benjamin Gore. Gore was glissading down Asgaard Pass when he fell through a hole in the snow into the creek below. 

This same hole, which is created by the melting snow, has claimed three lives now. One year ago, almost to the day, a 24-year old Seattle man was lost glissading with coworkers. In 2011, a 21-year old Eatonville woman was killed there. 

Jeff Paton of Cashmere was part of the Chelan County Mountain Rescue team that searched for Gore and the man last year. 

“There’s a stream that comes down Asgaard Pass which is covered by snow until it starts to melt out. It’s exactly in the middle of the pass. The pass is 2,200 feet from the lake to the summit. About about halfway down is a small waterfall,” Paton said. “That creates a hole underneath the snow. When it first starts to open, it is only a few inches wide, then it gets wider and wider.”

Paton said Gore was glissading, which is a normal procedure, but you must pick and choose your conditions and your runout. You don’t just glissade anything, he said, like on ice, or a place with an unsafe runout or rocks at the bottom. 

In this particular case, Gore lost control. 

“If you do get out of control, then you’re going to take what you get. This particular spot, whether it didn’t add it up or what, but it leads you to a little waterfall about 15 feet, which pitches underneath the snow,” Paton said. “Right now, there is a three or four foot hole. He went right into that hole. The water goes over the rock underneath the snow, which is water polished and very smooth. You end up going down there quite a long ways.”

The only way to get the body out at this point is to wait for the snow to melt out more, he said. Paton said they do not want to put a guy down there in a dry suit, roped or not, and have the whole top collapse on him. 

Paton is confident the body will end up in the same exact place as the man from last year. 

“There are a couple little shelves where the water goes through there, down to a small shelf not really big enough to hang up a body, then down further to a big pool. The odds are that he will be in exactly the same place as the Chinese (tourist from Seattle) man,” Paton said. 

Asgaard Pass is popular glissading spot. There is a giant avalanche chute. When the trail and cliffs melt out, there is still deep snow over this hillside. There is a relatively safe runout at the bottom where the slop angle lessens. 

It’s a quick way to get down if you go up to climb Dragontail or the Enchantments, he said. 

“As long as the conditions are something you can control on, it’s no different that skiing down a steep slope. Can I glissade this safely? Can I stay in control?,” Paton said. “That’s a function of the snow quality, hard or soft, how steep the hill is. What is the runout? Are there hazards in the way, like a rock or tree? It’s all very subjective. Some guys are going to glissade things which are pretty hairy. Others might not glissade without a completely safe runout at the bottom.”

At Asgaard, the killer stream is right in the middle of the pass.  

“You are on such steep snow, unless you stop and think ‘is there a stream under here,’ you don’t know there is. You can’t see an indication of it. You can’t hear it,” Paton said. “I don’t like to be too critical, but these guys going up, could have looked down their descent line, and would have seen that waterfall. They might have said, whatever we do, we’re not going to start glissading until we get below that. That’s all about experience.”

After the accident last year, Paton said Forest Service put up a notice at the trailhead warning people to avoid the stream hazard. For Paton, an experienced mountaineer, you can’t mark every hazard. There are all types of hazards, cliffs, rocks, rockfall, avalanches, crevasses. 

“This is a pretty unique spot. My own personal opinion is it would be good to have a sign at the end of the trail as you go around Colchuck Lake and are looking at your ascent route. Stay left at Asgaard Pass. Fatalities have occurred over the 12hazardous stream. That might still happen,” Paton said. 

The key question is, how can future tragedies be prevented at Asgaard Pass? Paton said when people are going someplace new, they’ll check out guidebooks or websites, like the Washington Trails Association. 

There’s a lot of information out there, that sometimes, might mention this hazard. 

“This hazard is a temporary one. That’s why it happened almost a year ago to the day. When it is completely covered with snow, it’s not a hazard because it is so deep, you are safe. But as it starts to melt out, it gets thinner and thinner, so you could walk on it and fall through or you could be glissading and, if you did lose control, it could eat you,” Paton said. “The mountains are extremely variable in terms of what is safe, when and where. It’s get difficult to document those individual hazards.

“It’s a very strange spot. It’s not very visible from above. You’re over it before you know what happened, if you haven’t looked at your route down. Visibility is everything.”

*Glissading is the act of descending a steep snow-covered slope via a controlled slide. 

Ian Dunn can be reached at 548-5286 or editor@leavenworthecho.com.

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