Pair lost in back country Jan. 5



By ERIC MULLENS

ALAMOSA — Two 27-year old Albuquerque, N.M. men lost in a suspected avalanche while snow boarding near Wolf Creek Ski Area on Jan. 5, 2008 were found and removed from an out-of-bounds area on Monday.

Mineral County Coroner Charles Downing confirmed the identities of Kyle Kerschen and Michael George Monday afternoon and said the bodies have been transferred to the El Paso County Medical Examiners Office and autopsies should be performed today or tomorrow. Until then, Downing would not speculate on the cause of death.

Downing said the two men were found approximately one-tenth of a mile from one another in a bowl section of the mountains adjacent to the ski area. Kerschen’s body was discovered first at 1:09 p.m. in an area where most of the winter snow had melted away. George’s body was found at 3:05 p.m. in a forest area where there was still some snow on the ground. Both men’s bodies were spotted from the air by a helicopter used in the search and recovery effort mounted by the victim’s families.

The coroner said ski patrol personnel from the ski area and Wolf Creek Ski Area owner Davey Pritcher participated in the effort with Pritcher working out of the helicopter during the recovery mission.

Downing and Mineral County Sheriff Fred Hosselkus were also involved in the mission Monday. Once the bodies had been spotted, ground crews aided by search dogs were stopped and prevented from going further into the location until law enforcement could secure the scene and conduct their investigation. Investigators had to be transported to the discovery site by helicopter. Downing said the bodies were brought out of the mountains after 5 p.m. using the helicopter.

The victims’ families were on scene in Mineral County Monday and Downing said family members of both Kerschen and George participated in the search. The families had notified Mineral County authorities they were going to search for the men on Monday and hired the private helicopter from an air service based in Durango, Colo.

“The ground teams worked in coordination with the air team,” Downing said. He said search dogs, even after many months, found a scent of the men in the mountains and helped direct the helicopter into areas likely to contain their remains.

The Mineral County Sheriff’s Office had planned another search effort once more of the high country snow had melted, but the men’s families wanted to search as soon as was practical.

Search efforts after the initial discovery of the men’s vehicle in the ski area parking lot in January was extensive, but hampered by bad weather and dangerous avalanche conditions. All-terraine vehicles, snowmobiles and helicopters were used in the initial searches conducted in the days after the men’s disappearance but no sign of the men was found until yesterday.

By midweek in the days after the men were reported lost helicopters were grounded due to bad weather. It was during the same stormy weather period that Lygon Steven’s, 21, of Loveland, Colo. was caught in an avalanche near Little Bear Peak on the Blanca massif.

Her body has not yet been recovered although Alamosa County Search and Rescue has plans to attempt to find her body and remove her from the mountain in the near future.

In the days and weeks after Kerschen and George’s disappearance, Hosselkus conducted a standard missing persons investigation which included attempting to track the victim’s credit cards and financial records to see if there was any unexplained activity that might point to their being alive or indicate someone else was trying to use their identifications or credit or bank cards. The effort turned up no evidence of criminal activity and while the case remained open was treated as an unfortunate back country accident.