Story Created: Jun 7, 2010 at 9:24 AM MDT
Story Updated: Jun 7, 2010 at 9:24 AM MDT
Mt. Rainier, taken June 5, 2010 (Photo: National Park Service.)
An air search was launched earlier for the missing person - but was called off Saturday afternoon due to deteriorating weather conditions on the towering mountain.
Stephen Lofgren, a lead climbing ranger at Mount Rainier National Park, said 11 people were scaling Mount Rainier at about the 12,000-feet elevation when they was hit by a slab avalanche at about 4:45 a.m.
Ten people eventually were freed from the snow - but one person who was climbing the mountain independently is still missing, Lofgren said.
"There's still one person that remains at large, and unfortunately this person did not register for their climb, so we have no information on who they are, what their name is, where they're from," Lofgren said.
"Information that we do have is that they were a foreign national, and they were soloing the mountain. But they did not have a permit to climb, so we don't know who they are."
A helicopter from the U.S. Army Reserve out of Fort Lewis flew two injured climbers to Madigan Army Medical Center for treatment of traumatic injuries, said Mount Rainier National Park spokeswoman Patty Wold.
Lofgren said it was a "huge avalanche" on the upper part of the Ingraham Glacier. It started at about 12,500 feet elevation and carried down to about 11,200 feet, and was estimated to be up to 4,000 feet wide.
"That kind of volume is able to sweep anybody who's standing in the way off their feet," Lofgren said. "There are crevasses that very easily trap you. You get sucked into a crevasse, and the snow buries you, and there is nothing you can do."
He said the missing climber's chances of survival are "very low at this point."
"Right now our most pressing thing is trying to figure out who this person was," Lofgren said. "We really have no way of tracking them down right now."
He said the forecast is for worsening weather, with a high avalanche danger, and that there may be little or no opportunity to resume the search on Sunday.
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