Photo Credit: americancityandcounty.com Deer Mountain is lookers right in this photo
Michael Madden, 35, had been missing since this past March. The Ketchikan Volunteer Rescue Squad recently recovered his body after aircraft spotted it in an area known as Deer Mountain, outside Ketchikan, Alaska.
The snowboarder’s cause of demise in unknown, although the presumption is that Michael was the victim of an avalanche accident. He was out snowboarding in the backcountry solo, and was reported missing on March 12th.
Michael was a local from Ketchikan, and was reported to have been in contact while ascending his chosen route. He had just ridden in the area the week before the accident, and reported the new snow was much deeper on this attempt than the previous week’s effort. A rescue team attempted to extract Michael from the mountain after the accident occurred, but were forced to back down due to high winds and heavy avalanche danger in the area.
Several teams attempted to find Michael for more than a week before calling off their efforts on March 20th. Dog sleds were even used to try and deal with the adverse conditions, but snow up to 20 feet deep prevented them from finding him, until the Ketchikan Volunteer Rescue Squad recently recovered his body.