Final report on tragic avalanche that killed Terry and Renee Skjersaa finds no ‘red flags’ to warn them of danger
BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) – A final report on last month’s avalanche that killed a well-known Bend couple says that while skiers Terry and Renee Skjersaa likely triggered the slide, there were no obvious “red flags’ warning of rising danger in the Cascades.
Many details leading up to the deadly backcountry avalanche are not known, because the Skjersaas were not with other people at the time of the Feb. 17 midday slide in the Happy Valley area west of Bend, Gabriel Coler of the Central Oregon Avalanche Center wrote in a report posted this week on the National Avalanche Center website.
"There was obvious hard over weak layering in the upper snowpack, but forecasters had not been observing natural avalanches or collapses in the snowpack, and test results were not raising 'red flags,'" Coler wrote, adding: "Even in a relatively “simple” mountain range like the Oregon Cascades, there is a lot of variation in the snowpack, as was evidenced by the melt-freeze crust we had not seen elsewhere."
The avalanche occurred on a south-facing slope, at 6,700 feet in elevation, the report says, an open area with clusters of trees. The couple "were found with their skins on, and it is suspected that they triggered the avalanche while skinning midway up the path."
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"Neighbors report that the two riders left home in the early afternoon," the report said. "They snowmobiled up to Happy Valley and parked along the snowmobile road directly beneath the slope that they were touring on.
"Based upon their tracks, it is likely that they skinned directly uphill. Both riders were found with their skins on their skis; it is most likely given the slope configuration that they triggered the avalanche from mid-slope. The only tracks that were observed were the ones leading into the avalanche path."
"It is difficult to make much in the way of commentary with so little understanding about what occurred on February 17," Coler wrote. "The slope that the riders were skinning up was not particularly large, nor was it an obvious path, but it was steep, reaching 45 degrees at multiple spots. There were less steep and better-supported skinning options nearby."
"As in other avalanche accident scenes that I’ve been to, I was again impressed by how much even sparse or clustered trees increase the consequences of being caught in an avalanche," Coler's report concluded.
