2010-2011 Season Incidents
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Kip Garre and Allison Kreutzen drove from the Lake Tahoe area Monday April 25 and camped at the Red Lake trailhead south of Big Pine, CA. They told a Tahoe friend they planned to do a one day ski descent of either the Split Mountain East Couloir or the St. Jean Couloirs and return to their truck by around 1600 on Tuesday.
When the party failed to contact friends with the details of their day, on Wednesday, one of the party’s Tahoe friends called a local skier who drove to the Red Lake trailhead on Wednesday and found their trucked parked at the trailhead with Allison’s dog Dolce tied to the pickup. After receiving notification that the party was overdue, an Inyo County sheriff arrived at the Red’s Lake trailhead later that day and noted a recent large point release avalanche on Cardinal Mountain on a NE to ENE aspect, aspects similar to the aspect of the East Couloir. The sheriff then requested all volunteers meet at the Sheriff’s posse hut at 0700 Thursday morning.
The next morning, Inyo County SAR provided volunteers with radios and the group and members of the Inyo County SAR left for the Red Lake trailhead. At 1145, volunteers found Garre deceased, partially buried lying near the end of the debris from a large avalanche at an elevation of 11,266 ft. Kreutchen was deceased and partially buried at 12,110 ft.
On Friday, the helicopter mission to retrieve the bodies was called off due to high winds. The helicopter was able to land near Red’s Lake on Saturday, April 30 2011 and retrieve the remains.
On Wednesday, April 27, two climbers ascended Split Mountain via the North Ridge and one took pictures of a slab avalanche at the top of the East Couloir. His photograph is included in the Image Gallery. The photographer requests that he remain anonymous. While it is not certain the skiers triggered the avalanche, they were likely caught near the top of the East Couloir at 13,850 ft and carried down the length of the couloir.
