After 12 years, Wasilla voters will put a man in charge
BRENDAN SMART: Feb. 28 avalanche killed, buried Iraq vet.
Published: May 31, 2006
Last Modified: May 31, 2006 at 11:24 AM
WASILLA -- Brenda Smart helped carry the litter bearing the body of her son Monday out of Hatcher Pass, 91 days after an avalanche swept the young snowboarder away and buried him.
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Brendan Smart
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"It was beautiful. I just love that I was able to carry my son's body back out of there," Brenda Smart said by phone from Anchorage. "I just had the biggest smile on my face that we were able to go get him and to be able to help."
A snowboarder found Brendan Smart's body on Sunday, according to Alaska State Troopers. His mother said she returned home from a lasagna dinner Sunday evening and saw a message on her answering machine.
She knew what it was before listening, she said.
Brendan Smart, 24, a former Marine and Iraq vet, died Feb. 28 snowboarding down Marmot Mountain. He was with two friends. Authorities at the time said the snowboarders probably kicked off the avalanche inadvertently.
No search took place after initial efforts to locate Smart. Avalanche experts deemed the slope too unstable even after Brenda Smart's employer, attorney Wayne Ross of Anchorage, paid for a helicopter to drop explosive charges and render the slope safe for search-and-rescue teams.
Brenda Smart said her son was buried initially by at least 25 feet of snow.
She and a friend, Skipper Shimek of Anchorage, accompanied a trooper and a team of rescuers to the pass Monday. She said a trooper's helicopter on its way to help lift the body was diverted elsewhere.
"I just said, heck, let's go climb up and help carry him down," she said. "So we did."
A crew brought Brendan down from the snowfield; his mother helped carry him the rest of the way to the road.
She didn't know the name of the snowboarder who found Brendan, at last, but said he knew the area well. He happened across her son's snowboard, his body beneath, and covered it with more snow until he could alert authorities, she said.
The avalanche at 3:44 p.m. on Feb. 28 on the east side of Hatcher Pass was about 200 feet wide and fell 1,600 feet, according to troopers. Smart carried a locator beacon in his backpack, but the device was not turned on, said trooper's spokesman Greg Wilkinson.
"It just breaks my heart to say, when you go out on one of these kinds of things, you need to have the equipment, and you need to have it operating," he said.
His mother said Smart was a heavy equipment operator in the Marine Corps and helped breach sand berms during the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. He had a love of the outdoors that included mountain biking as well as snowboarding. She said a friend of his planned a memorial disc golf tournament, another activity her son enjoyed.
Midnight Sun Brewing Co. of Anchorage made a batch of Corporal Strong Ale in honor of Brendan Smart, and raised $1,000 for his mother in sales of $10 growlers, she said.
Brendan's friends remembered his mother with visits, dinners and cookouts while she waited to bring Brendan home. On Mother's Day, they stoked a fire pit in the backyard of her Anchorage home, cooked elk meat and drank beer, she said.
Brenda Smart thanked the troopers, park rangers and members of search and rescue teams that turned out to help find her son, retrieve his body and who didn't forget her as she waited three months.
She said she plans a military service and to cremate her son's remains. Evergreen Memorial Chapel is handling the arrangements, she said.
Contact Mat-Su editor Joseph Ditzler at 1-907-352-6715 or jditzler@adn.com.
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