Alaska News

Riders fall in crevasse; two treated

A group of snowmachine riders exploring the Snow River valley near Seward on Sunday ventured onto a glacier above Nellie Juan Lake, fell into a crevasse and had to be rescued by helicopter, according to Alaska State Troopers.

A trooper press release said Helo 1 was launched from Anchorage after an emergency locator beacon went off near the lake. Troopers and U.S. Forest Service rangers subsequently discovered several machines had been ridden into a snow-covered crevasse on a nearby glacier.

"Walter Gilmour, 46, of Wasilla was injured in the crash,'' troopers reported. "Jennifer Messick, 34, of Wasilla was found to be hypothermic." Both she and Gilmour were taken to the Seward Hospital.

Relatives said Monday that both are fine, but Gilmour, an Anchorage Police Department officer, injured his hand so badly that surgery was required. Further details on what happened leading up to the accident were unavailable Monday.

Riding on the sprawling Sargent Icefield east of Nellie Juan Lake has gotten snowmachiners in trouble before, but because of the difficulty of access it is not as popular as the unnamed icefield feeding the Spencer, Skookum and Portage glaciers along the Seward Highway near Turnagain Pass.

Twenty-eight-year-old Karl Jabas from Anchorage died there last spring when his snowmachine plunged into a crevasse.

Carl Skustad, an avalanche ranger with the Forest Service, said snowmachining on glaciers -- unless the route has been probed for crevasses and marked -- is extremely dangerous.

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"It's playing Russian roulette,'' he said.

Despite that, a whole network of snowmobile trails develop every winter on the Chugach Forest glaciers south of Anchorage.

Find Craig Medred online at adn.com/contact/cmedred or call 257-4588.

By CRAIG MEDRED

cmedred@adn.com

Craig Medred

Craig Medred is a former writer for the Anchorage Daily News, Alaska Dispatch and Alaska Dispatch News. He left the ADN in 2015.

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