Avalanche victim an expert snowmobiler

Expert snowmobiler Geoffrey Richard Caldbeck died of suffocation after being buried by an avalanche Saturday in the Swede Creek area near Olney.

The Flathead County Sheriff’s Office released the 33-year-old Kalispell man’s name Monday afternoon after notifying his family.

Geoffrey was the son of Ron Caldbeck, who owns Winter Wonderland Sports, a snowmobile and ski rental business in Olney, as well as Wild Wave Rentals, a watercraft rental business in Lakeside.

Rob Milne, the manager of Winter Wonderland Sports, described Geoffrey Caldbeck as a highly experienced snowmobiler who frequently participated in competitions.

“I’ve been riding basically since I was 4,” Milne said. “I’m 52 and he was 10 times better of a rider than I was. Phenomenal. He was definitely a professional rider.”

Milne said Caldbeck had a daughter and a wife, Tanya, who is pregnant with twins.

“Everybody just loved him a lot. He was a really great kid and had a great personality. He was like a son to me,” he said. “I hope everybody says a prayer for Tanya.”

Caldbeck was one of two snowmobilers buried out of a group of three riders on Saturday. One of the snowmobilers was able to dig himself out and help the third snowmobiler locate and extricate Caldbeck’s body. Caldbeck was wearing a beacon.

“The one victim said it took him probably 20 minutes to get himself dug out,” Flathead County Sheriff Chuck Curry said Monday. “Some people survive after an hour or two down there and some people don’t survive after 15 minutes. It’s dependent on a lot of factors.”

Curry said the initial call came in at 4:15 p.m. Saturday after the other two snowmobilers rode back into an area with cellphone service.

Due to darkness and poor weather conditions, Caldbeck’s body was not recovered until Sunday. Two Bear Air recovered the body, and Flathead County Search and Rescue and North Valley Search and Rescue also responded.

The Flathead Avalanche Center warned of “considerable avalanche danger” Monday in the Whitefish, Swan and Flathead mountain ranges, as well as the southern portion of Glacier National Park.

Erich Peitzsch, the center’s director, said he and some colleagues visited the avalanche site Sunday and will release a detailed report in the coming days.

Pietzsch said Saturday’s incident was the first fatal avalanche in the Flathead area since February 2012.

The avalanche chute was about 200 feet wide and stretched for about 200 vertical feet, ranging up to 5 feet deep near its base.

“We try to piece together where the trigger might have happened, where people were buried and get all the dimensions we can,” Peitzsch said. “The whole point of going out there and writing up an incident report is so we can educate others. As humans we try to hopefully learn from our mistakes, and I think it’s good to look at case studies.”

He said the avalanche was a D2, meaning it was substantial enough to bury, injure or kill a person. The classification system ranges up to D5, which is capable of altering the landscape.

Wind had built up snow on the ridge on top of a layer of ice and a weak layer of powdery snow underneath.

“It could support the slab above it, but once there’s a trigger, that layer wasn’t able to support the slab and the rider,” Peitzsch said. “Right now we kind of have a tricky and dangerous snowpack. These deeper layers, if you do a stability test, some places will show that the layer is unstable and other places they won’t.”

He recommended that snowmobilers, skiers and others recreating in the backcountry avoid steep terrain and instead try to stay on low-angled slopes.

“What folks also tend to forget is if you’re in a gully at the bottom of a slope and that snow slides, there may be nowhere to go,” he added. “We call that a ‘terrain trap.’”

The avalanche center hosts free avalanche awareness and rescue training classes. The next class, in which participants will learn companion rescue skills, will be Saturday at noon at the Cut Bank Snowmobile Club Warming Hut on Skyland Road near Marias Pass.

For more information and daily avalanche reports, visit www.flatheadavalanche.org.

Reporter Sam Wilson can be reached at 758-4407 or by email at swilson@dailyinterlake.com.