Low-flying helicopters in the Snoqualmie Valley tend to put local on edge, but it appears the helicopter in Valley skies yesterday did not bring any sad news.
The King County Sheriff’s Office Guardian 2 helicopter responded to an avalanche search and rescue mission in the Alpental area, Saturday, January 4, 2013, around 3:30PM. The helicopter helped insert a K9 search team to the scene.
Seattle Mountain Rescue later reported on their Facebook page, that ten of its members also responded to southeast portion of Chair Peak at Snoqualmie Pass after witnesses reported seeing the slide and then some digging in the debris field. Rescue crew members made contact with those digging and then completed a search of the debris field.
Earlier reports stated one person had been caught avalanche, but dug himself out and hiked out of the area. Seattle Mountain Rescue, made the final determination that no one had been caught in the slide, stating via social media, “all’s well that ends well.”
Although Snoqualmie Pass has not received much snow this winter, the higher peaks did pick up some fresh snow during the couple of days leading up to the small avalanche.
