Alaska State Troopers, along with the Fort Greely Fire and Rescue from the Valdez Avalanche Center, are responding to a possibly fatal avalanche report in the area of Summit Lake last night.

The call came in to troopers at 7:45 pm on Monday night from a snow-machiner at that location, but because the closest assets were two hours away, and darkness would have set in by the time responders could reach the scene, response was postponed until this morning to enter the potentially dangerous avalanche area.

The caller reported that he had been part of a three-man party and that one of the machiners had been swept up in the avalanche. It was reported that the victim did not have an avalanche beacon when the incident occurred.

Search and rescue is currently attempting to have a K-9 from PAWS in Fairbanks to assist in the search as the ground search begins.

No names in the incident have been released.[xyz-ihs snippet=”Adsense-responsive”]

  avalanche, fairbanks, fatality, fort greely, machine, rescue, search, snow, Summit Lake