Matt Theodore gave his younger brother one last hug before he left him, hurt and unable to move, in a ravine at Hatcher Pass and told him he'd be right back with help.

By the time rescuers got to the snowboarder, though, the teenager was dead.

"I thought he had more time," Theodore said Thursday, the day after his brother died on the mountain.

Royce Morgan, 18, died of undetermined causes Wednesday night after an afternoon of snowboarding at one of the brothers' favorite spots in the park, in a bowl called Eldorado, just west of the Hatcher Pass Lodge.

"I don't know that we are truly going to know what happened until we get the autopsy report," said Dan Amyot, chief park ranger of the Matanuska district.

Alaska State Troopers involved in the rescue did not return phone calls and their spokeswoman, Megan Peters, would say little about what happened.

Theodore, though, said in a phone interview from his Wasilla home that the brothers began their trek up the mountain in the early afternoon. They wore minimal clothing because they knew they'd be warm from the exercise, Theodore said. "That's the way it is with snowboarding," he said. "Two to three hours up and a five-minute run down to the car."

Morgan was wearing shorts under his snow pants and had no insulated winter top, just his shell jacket. Neither brother was wearing a helmet, Theodore said.

He believes his brother froze to death.

LOST ON A RUN

Morgan, whom everyone called "Bugsy," was a student in and out of the alternative Burchell High in Wasilla. Most recently, though, he had been working at Kentucky Fried Chicken. Theodore, 25, and a heavy equipment operator, hadn't been working at all lately, he said.

After the brothers hiked up a ridge, they turned to ride their snowboards down the bowl.

Theodore launched his board and his brother was supposed to follow.

"I looked back and he wasn't there," Theodore said. "Like he changed his mind in a split second and went down another way."

Theodore called out but got no response. He tried to climb back up but the powder was too thick. He kept sinking up to his waist. He could see where his brother was supposed to be but he wasn't there.

Theodore raced down to the bottom of the bowl and to the nearby lodge where he hoped someone could help him, he said.

Only Nick Nickoli, the cook at the lodge, was there. He was closing up for the day. It was after 6 p.m. and the park rangers -- who in years past had had a caretaker at Hatcher Pass but this year do not -- had also left for the day. He told Theodore the best thing to do was to call the troopers.

"I wasn't dressed to go up," Nickoli said.

It was getting dark, and the winds were howling and the snow was coming down. The air temperature was about 20 degrees.

Theodore made the 911 call at 6:22 p.m., according to a trooper statement.

The dispatcher wanted Theodore to stay on the line but he couldn't just wait, he said. "It's like no one was alarmed," he said.

He went back to the mountain, slugging up in the deep snow, calling his little brother's name.

Finally he heard a reply. It was his brother yelling something unintelligible, he said.

When he got to him, Morgan had no hat, had lost his board, and had snow in the collar of his jacket.

The teen had no obvious signs of trauma. He just looked very, very cold, the older brother said.

"You got to get up, man. You got to get up," Theodore told him.

But it wasn't registering, Theodore said. "He could speak but he wasn't comprehending anything I was saying."

Morgan kept pointing his finger at the lights of the Hatcher Pass Lodge just below. "Yeah we got to go there, but you got to get up," Theodore said.

Theodore tried to sit his brother on his snowboard and push him down. The pair got about 300 yards, Theodore guesses, before the bowl turned upwards at a gully and he couldn't muster the strength, through the snow to push any further. He worked for maybe an hour. It seemed like forever, he said. "I couldn't drag him up that hill," he said.

He tried carrying his younger brother, slinging him over his back but the 18-year-old was too heavy for him.

Theodore unzipped his jacket and unzipped his brother's jacket, hugging him and trying to keep him warm, he said. He called for help through the 20 mile per hour winds but no one responded.

He knew that he wasn't going to be able to get his brother out of there and that his brother was just getting worse. He decided to go back to the lodge for help, he said.

He gave his brother one last hug.

HELP CAME TOO LATE

By the time Theodore got to Hatcher Pass Lodge, the owner, Hap Wurlitzer, was back. "I never thought there were any big problems, because people get lost all the time," Wurlitzer said Wednesday by phone.

"He was pretty incoherent," Wurlitzer said of Theodore. "He was slurring and having a hard time."

Hours had passed since Theodore first called 911 at 6:22 p.m. The trooper report says he got back to the lodge around 8:52 p.m., a time that Theodore and Wurlitzer say is probably right.

While Theodore thawed himself in front of the wood-burning stove, he waited for help. He told the lodge owner, "I hope my brother makes it."

Theodore said the first trooper arrived about 10 minutes later.

Amyot, the park ranger, said troopers were probably slowed by the weather. "People make the assumption, 'We are close to the road. We have a cell. They can send a helicopter.'" Amyot said. "It's not that quick. The response isn't going to be instantaneous. It takes time for responders to get up there."

Wurlitzer and the trooper, with a spotlight, followed Theodore's tracks and found Morgan at 9:15 p.m. He was 100 feet down a gully, Wurlitzer said. He had no pulse and was not breathing.

Medics arrived and tried to revive him but were unable to. He was pronounced dead just before 10 p.m.

Wurlitzer said he didn't know how the teen died but said it's possible he hit his head and injured himself. Theodore says he believed his brother froze to death.