Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Snowmobile Rider Unhurt In Avalanche Near Cooke City

Two snowmobilers are waist deep in mountain snow with their snowmobiles on Mt. Abundance.
A. Bertolino
A rider was caught in this slide on the side of Mt. Abundance on December 12, 2019.

A snowmobile rider has escaped injury after being caught in an avalanche over the weekend in southern Montana.

Credit A. Bertolino
"...Rider was approaching blind roll over from the top when slide was triggered at the visible crown. Rider attempted to bail, but both the individual and machine were carried over and through the rocks and strainers below. Rider and machine were deposited in the debris pile as seen in pictures. Rider was unharmed. Machine was pretty well trashed...." Bertolino wrote in an email to the Gallatin National Forest Avalanche Center.

The Billings Gazette reports that the avalanche was triggered Saturday by the rider and was one of three triggered near Cooke City that day. 

The Gallatin National Forest Avalanche Center says though the rider was uninjured, the snowmobile was “trashed.” 

The center described the avalanche as a hard slab avalanche between two and four feet deep.

The avalanche appeared to have happened on the east facing aspect of the far south shoulder of Mt. Abundance.

The Associated Press is one of the largest and most trusted sources of independent newsgathering, supplying a steady stream of news to its members, international subscribers and commercial customers. AP is neither privately owned nor government-funded; instead, it's a not-for-profit news cooperative owned by its American newspaper and broadcast members.