An afternoon of snowshoeing near Lake Louise ended in tragedy for a group from Spain who have been working in Alberta.
According to Lisa Paulson, Parks Canada Visitor safety specialist, the five Spaniards, who are believed to be in their twenties, were traversing an area near the bottom of a steep slope on Lake Agnes, approximately six kilometres from Lake Louise, when they triggered an avalanche at approximately 3:00 p.m. Saturday.
One man and his girlfriend were fully engulfed by the slide. The three remaining members of their group, two men and one woman, were buried in waist deep snow. After successfully removing themselves from the snow, the three attempted to locate free their friends while placing a cell phone call for help. The snowshoers were not equipped with avalanche equipment.
"These people didn’t have avalanche safety gear, they didn’t have avalanche beacons and there was no way to find them using avalanche transceivers," said Brian Webster, Parks Canada representative.
For safety reasons, officials triggered two additional avalanches in the region.
"Rescuers thought it was unsafe to put rescuers onto the accident site without doing some avalanche control first so they used explosives and they triggered two subsequent avalanches," said Webster. "At that point they felt the accident site was safe and they put rescue crews onto the accident site."
Parks Canada crews arrived at the scene approximately 50 minutes after receiving the distress call. The rescue crew located the body of one of the missing members of the group. Additional resources were dispatched to the area to help assist in the search for the final member of the group.
Search and Rescue crews evacuated the three surviving members for the scene.
Shortly before night fall, a search dog located the body of the remaining snowshoer.
RCMP say the deceased man had been working in Calgary. His deceased girlfriend has been employed in Edmonton.
Recent snow and rising temperatures have resulted in an increase in avalanche risk. Parks Canada strongly recommends against travel in the backcountry and through avalanche terrain.
