Montrose Search and Rescue – Little Girl’s Parents Disappear Down an Ice Chute

Our San Gabriel Mountains are treacherous enough with their steep mountainsides of slippery broken granite but in the winter, a whole new range of dangers introduces iteslf. A very deadly one is the phenomenon of “ice chutes.”

After each of our occasional snowstorms, a cycle of freeze-thaw, freeze-thaw occurs. The bright Southern California sun melts the snow each day and, after dark, the high-altitude freeze sets in, refreezing the melted snow. This repeated cycle creates sheets of ice that are as slick as greased glass; oftentimes the ice sheets form on near-vertical slopes. Where the Angeles Crest Highway cuts across the slopes, these vertical ice sheets reach up onto the turnouts, creating slippery traps for the unwary who venture too close to the edge.

It happens again and again. Motorists pull into a snowy turnout. They get out and walk to the edge to get a better view. They unknowingly step onto the glassy ice at the edge and over they go. As they hurtle downward, they funnel into the gullies, the “ice chutes” that create near-vertical toboggan runs. They pick up speed, flying down hundreds, sometimes thousands, of feet at 40 or 50 miles per hour until they hit a tree or rock, usually ending in death.

Such were the conditions just before Christmas in 1982, when a mother and father and their 7-year-old daughter drove up from the San Fernando Valley one afternoon to visit the snow. They pulled over into a snowy turnout at Dawson Saddle and got out to play in the snow. The father walked to the edge of the turnout where a steep cliff dropped off to a canyon far below. As the little girl watched, her father bent over to pick something up off the ground. To her horror, she saw his feet slip out from under him and, in a flash, he was gone over the side. The girl screamed to her mother that Dad had fallen and disappeared. Mom came running to the edge where Dad had been a moment before and leaned over the precipice to look for him. The same scene repeated itself for the panic-stricken girl. Mom’s feet shot out from under her and she too disappeared over the side and down the ice chute.

Passing motorists noticed the car parked in the turnout and saw the little girl in the back seat with no one around. They pulled over, and the driver approached the car. The little girl appeared terrified and locked her doors. Not wanting to scare the girl, the driver got back in the car and proceeded to the next turnout a short way up, where they pulled in. The two occupants got out and looked back. They could hear the girl screaming for her mother. When they happened to look down the cliff, they could see the form of the mother a few hundred feet below, so they called the Montrose Search and Rescue team.

The MSR team had just finished retrieving two ice chute fatalities the day before, two separate incidents that had happened in the same area. Team members responded and from the turnout the team rappelled 300 feet down the slippery ice chute in the dark. They found the woman alive but with massive head injuries. She had hit a rock and slammed up against a tree, which stopped her from sliding further. She was strapped into a litter and winched up to be airlifted out.

But the husband was nowhere to be seen. The MSR team searched the canyon below the ice chute all that night in 20-degree weather. They were joined by rescue teams from Antelope Valley, San Dimas, Altadena, Sierra Madre, even far-away Malibu, until a total of 39 men scoured the snow-bound canyon. Mid-day they finally found the father’s broken and lifeless body in the snow a full quarter-mile from where he had started his horrible slide down the ice chute.

These treacherous ice chutes are a very real danger when it snows on the Angeles Crest Highway. Be wary of the edges of the highway in icy conditions.

  mike lawler