Man dies in avalanche during a NOLS outing

From: Jackson Hole Guide

Richard Saenoff, 41, was skiing across an open hillside near Simpson Peak in the Teton Wilderness with nine other NOLS students and three instructors at about 3 p.m. when a slide, probably triggered by their movement, released snow and buried three students, according to Teton County Sheriff Roger Millward.

“ It did not totally cover two of them,” Millward said. “They were partially covered and they were dug out by other member of the party. Saenoff was buried for about five or six minutes, maybe up to a maximum of eight minutes.

On Tuesday evening, County Coroner Bob Campbell said that Saenoff’s death was due to suffocation. Saenoff was found face-down in the snow he said.

Teton County Deputy Coroner Ron Campbell, who served briefly Tuesday morning as coroner, said that Dulaney told him Saenoff had been buried in just three to four feet of snow.

The students, who were in their eight day of a two-week course, were equipped with transceivers, according to NOLS Operations Director John Gans.

After digging Saenoff from the snow, members of the group tried to resuscitate him with CPR but to no avail, Millward said.

When Saenoff did not respond, NOLS instructor Charlie Wilson then skied out and notified the NOLS headquarters in Lander of the incident, which then contacted the Teton County Sheriff’s Office at 1:30 Tuesday morning, Millward said.

The NOLS group was skiing in the Togwotee Pass area of the Teton Wilderness, about seven miles north of Highway 289, he said. “My guess is it was not a big slide, but probably some snow-load on a fairly open face that they figured was fairly stable,” Millward said.

A plan was set in motion to fly Deputy Mike Dulaney, a search-and-rescue training coordinator, to the scene Tuesday morning, in a helicopter piloted by Mountain Rotors owner Ken Johnson, Millward said.

The pair flew into the area in what Millward called “marginal weather’ to interview the group, take pictures, and recover the body, which then was transported to Jackson.

The rest of the group skied out ahead of schedule Tuesday night to the Togwotee Lodge area, Gans said.