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On February 1, seven Calgary families learned of the deaths of their teenage children, and
an entire country grieved with them. Six boys and one girl were killed during a high school
ski trip, swept to their deaths by a massive avalanche. It was an unimaginable tragedy,
both for the parents who saw their children off that fateful day and for the people who
tried desperately to rescue them. Tonight we hear their story. Saturday morning, day
two of the trip. The group heads up this popular trail into a mountain valley. Two other skiers
pass them on the way. I think it was probably around 10:30 or something like that when we
left the car and headed up the Connaught Creek Drainage and we were, you know, there was
a few people ahead of us we realized on the trail and we started passing a few groups
and some groups were going off into another..a drainage to ski and we came across the school
group and passed them. My understanding is that they were travelled paired up and that they
were...each pair was spaced out 10 to 15 meters between themselves and the next pair. We just
started off from our break. We noticed an avalanche coming down off the north face of
Mount Cheops and that's when we realized that there was, you know, the group was below in the path of it and...
Within seconds I had the realization that it was going to be very big.
We actually yelled to them that there was an avalanche coming down off of Cheops
and I had a question as to whether we were safe because we were straight across from it.
Yea, we actually witnessed the avalanche hit a couple of the front members of the group
and then just braced for what was going to happen and then we were hit by the powder cloud.
Right off the bat I could see that there were people caught in it and you know
I saw a hand sticking out and a leg further over and somebody partially buried and
there was little chance that I could (sigh) save every body (sigh) you just have to save
as many people as possible. And this party did use all the information that was available.
There was, from what I saw, indications of hazard in the park but not to the point where
people were not going up that valley, including having certified professionals, guides and
I myself as a guide and a park warden would have gone up that valley that day.
But the four seconds that wiped out seven young lives will leave lasting scars, not just on the
school and the families, but also, far away in the mountains of B.C.
Memories of those who lost their lives. Listen to their names: Scott Broshko,
Marissa Staddon, Ben Albert, Daniel Arato, Alex Patillo, Michael Shaw, Jeff Trickett.
The town of Revelstoke recently held a memorial service for the seven students who died. Many who attended were part of the huge rescue effort.
Others simply came to remember the young people who lost their lives
in the mountains they loved. For The National, I'm Margot McDermit in Revelstoke, B.C.