Tree-well survival: Don't ski alone

Deaths involving tree wells are rare but certainly not unprecedented at Whitefish Mountain Resort, where there have been two such deaths this winter and a total of six in the past 33 years.

“The last tree-well fatality that I know of was in 1999, so more than 10 years ago,” resort spokesman Donnie Clapp said, referring to an incident in which a man was stuck upside down in a tree well for five days before his body was found.

On Jan. 2, skier Niclas Waschle, a 16-year-old German exchange student attending Columbia Falls High School, died at Kalispell Regional Medical Center four days after he fell into a tree well on Big Mountain.

On Saturday, snowboarder Scott Allen Meyer, 29, of Kalispell died after he was found in a tree well at about 7:30 p.m. That same day, an elderly man was found in the middle of Ed’s Run, dead from an apparent heart attack.

“It’s been reallly tough here,” Clapp said of the recent incidents. “Losing three members of the skiing family has been really rough for people here, even if we didn’t know them personally.”

According to Daniel Graves, “Losing three lives in two weeks, two in tree wells and one due to natural causes, affects all of us deeply, and our thoughts and prayers go out to the friends and families of the victims.” Graves is president and chief executive officer of Winter Sports Inc., the parent company of Whitefish Mountain Resort.

The ski industry refers to tree-well deaths as “non-avalanche-related snow immersion deaths.”

Tree wells are hollowed areas or areas of less densely packed snow at the base of trees that are surrounded by deep snow. The odds of surviving after falling into a tree well, particularly head-first, are low.

Two experiments conducted in the United States and Canada found that 90 percent of volunteers who were temporarily put in a tree well could not rescue themselves, according to one website that advises skiers and snowboarders to always have a partner on the slopes.

“If a partner is not there for immediate rescue, the skier or rider may die very quickly from suffocation — in many cases, they can die as quickly as someone can drown in water,” according to a website sponsored by the Northwest Avalanche Institute in Oregon.

The two recent tree-well victims were alone at the time of their accidents.

Clapp recommended skiing within sight of a partner.

“It means I watch you ski a bit, then you stop and watch me ski a bit and then we repeat,” he said. “It does not mean regrouping at the lift and making sure everyone is there.”

Previous tree-well deaths on Big Mountain occurred in 1978, 1979 and 1990. Two of them involved lone skiers.

In the 1979 incident, Danny On, a well-known nature photographer and silviculturist, died after he hit a tree and fell into a tree well off of the Corkscrew slope. He was skiing alone.

The Danny On Memorial Trail on Big Mountain is named after him.

“I think you need to ski [off trail] similarly to how you ski backcountry or avalanche terrain,” said Tary King, Whitefish Mountain Resort’s Ski Patrol director. “Have a plan in place and stick to it. Talk to each other about how you are going to ski each run and stay close enough to help your buddy if needed.”

For more information on tree-well hazards, go to:

www.TreeWellDeepSnowSafety.com.

Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by e-mail at jmann@dailyinterlake.com.