Avalanche Victim Was ‘Very Fond’ of Outdoors

SEATTLE —  A lifelong outdoorsman, Donald J. Dovey had climbed nearly every major mountain in the Northwest, from Mt. Hood to Mt. Rainier.

But on a no-name mountain in the Cascade Range, the 37-year-old was one of a group of backcountry skiers caught up in an avalanche Sunday that killed the Seattle man and injured another man on a trip organized by the Mountaineers, a Seattle-based outdoor recreation club.

“He was very fond of the mountains, summer and winter,” said his mother, Ellen Dovey, of Keizer, Ore.

Dovey had been in a group that was skiing down a slope in the Norse Peak Wilderness Area, just east of the Crystal Mountain ski area, when the avalanche occurred.

A witness perched on a ridge top watched as the skiers made their way down the slope, said the ski area’s general manager, John Kircher, who spoke with the witness. The last pair appeared to trigger the avalanche, which enveloped one of those skiers as well as three others. Three of the skiers were able to dig themselves out. They found the fourth, Dovey, buried under 5 feet of snow. Dovey’s companions attempted CPR, but they were unable to revive him.