An Iowa man is dead after a snowmobiling accident in the Wind River Mountains near Dubois on Monday.
Fremont County Undersheriff Mike Hutchison said the Fremont County Dispatch Center got a call about the incident at 11:30 a.m. Monday. First responders with Dubois WY Search and Rescue mobilized and responded to the scene.
“We got the call that a man was buried (in the snow) with a snowmobile on top of him,” he said. “Our first search and rescue personnel reached the scene around 1:22 p.m. and found that the man was deceased.”
The Fremont County Coroner’s Office has not released the victim’s identity or cause of death. Hutchison confirmed that the victim was a 36-year-old Iowa man.
Crashed And Crushed
According to Hutchison, the incident happened north of U.S. Highway 26 within a mile of the Moccasin Basin parking area and south of Brooks Lake.
“My understanding is that (the victim) wasn’t found at the initial coordinates, but in that general area,” he said.
Based on the initial call, first responders assumed that the victim had been caught in an avalanche. However, an assessment of the scene revealed a different story.
The victim appeared to be driving uphill when the snowmobile he was riding overturned. The heavy machine landed on top of him, pinning him underneath.
Hutchison said the victim appeared to have hit a tree, causing the snowmobile to overturn.
“Our initial impression was that there had been some kind of an avalanche, but we later learned that there was not an avalanche,” he said. “It appeared to be a crash.”
The Hazards Of Trees
Over the last few months, several people have died after hitting trees during snowmobile excursions in Wyoming's mountains.
On Jan. 23, Teton County Search & Rescue (TCSAR) responded to a call from a guided snowmobile party in the vicinity of Granite Creek Road in Bridger-Teton National Forest.
Edith Pike, 32, of Stratford, Connecticut, “lost consciousness with life-threatening injuries” after colliding with a tree and died later that day, the agency reported.
On Jan. 26, TCSAR responded to another incident on Togwotee Pass. Joshua Dillon Escamilla, 31, was riding a snowmobile off-trail with another person when they collided with a tree.
Escamilla went into cardiac arrest and couldn’t be revived.
"This has been a challenging winter so far for our mountain community," said TCSAR communications director Matt Hansen after the Jan. 26 incident. “TCSAR has responded to four fatalities, with two coming in the last three days. We know that accidents happen and that we all make mistakes.”
Even experienced snowmobilers can make mistakes leading to potentially fatal accidents, especially in the rugged terrain of Wyoming’s mountains. At high speeds, trees can be especially dangerous and underestimated.
"By and large, (hitting trees) is typically more of a beginner mistake, but advanced riders are not immune,” Will Mook, co-owner of The Mountain Riding Lab in Jackson, told Cowboy State Daily in January. “It’s hard to speculate what happened in these incidents, and my heart goes out to the families affected and all the individuals involved with these rescues.”
Mook said many snowmobile drivers underestimate the power of their machines.
Technology has advanced immensely in the last few decades, making snowmobiles more powerful, more user-friendly, and more dangerous, which means they need to be “treated with respect,” he said.
“They're not toys, they are recreational vehicles,” he said. “They’re amazing, and better than they’ve ever been, but you have to treat them with respect, because they definitely can be dangerous.”
Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.
