Victim of tree-well accident identified

Douglas Spring has been identified as the skier who died Saturday after falling head-first into a tree well at Whitefish Mountain Resort.

Spring, 54, was from California. 

Spring was skiing with his son between the Bighorn and Gray Wolf runs on the back side of Big Mountain.

When the son arrived at the bottom of the run and his father failed to show up, he returned to the top and retraced their route. The son eventually found his father’s skis sticking out of a tree well.

Efforts to resuscitate Spring were unsuccessful.

The resort reported 5 inches of new wet snow fell on Saturday, and nearly 20 inches of new snow had fallen on Big Mountain since Wednesday. Visibility was reduced in the morning due to thick fog and blowing snow.

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.

Whitefish Mountain Resort has posted a list of tree-well safety tips and guidelines on its Web site and at the end of its daily snow report. According to the guidelines, skiers are advised to avoid deep snow and trees and to ski with a partner.

“Any death at our resort is a tragedy and felt deeply by the entire Whitefish Mountain Resort community,” resort officials said in a statement Monday. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the family and friends affected by this tragedy."  

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.

There are an average of four tree-well accidents each season in the United States, according to the website www.deepsnowsafety.org, which also offers safety tips for avoiding or dealing with tree-well accidents, also known as “snow immersion suffocation.”

Previous tree-well deaths on Big Mountain occurred in 1978, 1979, 1990 and 2010.  

One of the most notable was in 1979 when Forest Service silviculturist and noted outdoor photographer Danny On died in a tree well on Big Mountain.

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