He was dead when rescuers dug him out from under about 5 feet of consolidated snow at about 11,000 feet elevation. He had been buried for about an hour and a half, Krueger said. Julie Holmes, who owns the Alpendorf on the Lake guest lodge where Campestre and his friends were staying, said that she had never seen the area slide before. Not since I've been here. She said the area had received a small amount of fresh snow over the weekend but that the wind had been blowing mightily for several days.
High winds are a common factor in the formation of slab avalanches.
Holmes was at work in Empire when she heard about the slide. She immediately called the cabin to see if anyone was hurt. Holmes quickly got in her car and drove the 45 minutes to Duck Lake. When she got there, she saw the children sitting around the kitchen table, drawing, while rescuers from the sheriff's department, the highway department and the U.S. Forest Service tried to revive the still body of their father up the hill. This is my favorite place in the whole world.