Avalanche dogs find missing Seaside man dead in snow

Avalanche dogs on Tuesday morning found a missing Seaside skier dead under massive amounts of snow powder, less than 100 feet from a groomed run at Heavenly Mountain Resort, authorities said.

Brett Herrick, 62, went missing at about 11:30 a.m. Monday near the Comet run, off the Stagecoach Lodge area on the Nevada side of the resort. His girlfriend was the last one to see him.

Crews using the dogs found Herrick around 10 a.m. Tuesday in the Aries Woods, between the Comet and Dipper runs. He was in a wooded, off-trail area that was perfectly legal for him to ski, Douglas County (Nev.). Undersheriff Paul Howell said.

“What we believe happened is that he was off the trail skiing in some very deep powder, and his ski tips crossed and he went over face first and couldn’t get out,” Howell said. “It’s called snow immersion, and you drown, and it can happen when you’re in powder that’s as deep as the powder we have.”

An “atmospheric river” of precipitation that rolled through California and the Sierra Nevada last weekend dumped 108 inches of snow at Heavenly over the seven days before Tuesday. By 5:20 a.m. Tuesday, 34 inches fell in a 48-hour period. Three inches of snow fell Monday.

Rescue crew workers “were sinking to their hips,” as they tried to extricate Herrick from the snow. The Sheriff’s Office Search and Rescue Team tried to find him Monday, along with a helicopter from the Naval Air Station in Fallon, Nev.

Temperatures dipped below 5 degrees Monday night.

An autopsy by the Douglas County Sheriff’s Coroner will determine the cause of death.