Avalanche Kills Couple Asleep in Their Idaho Cabin

An avalanche crashed down onto a mountainside cabin early Friday, filling the home with snow and killing a couple as they slept.

Their children and grandchildren, who were sleeping in the loft, survived.

A slab of snow along the ridge above the cabin broke loose, triggering the avalanche, said Kyle Davenport, an administrative assistant at the nearby Soldier Mountain Ski Resort who assisted in the rescue effort. The bulk of the snow slammed into the structure.

“It looks like somebody just fired the snow through the windows on that whole side of the building,” Davenport said.

He said the debris field at the base of the avalanche was nearly 200 yards wide, and between 10 and 15 feet deep.

“The room where the grandparents were found was filled nearly to the ceiling with snow and the bed was pushed clear against the far wall,” Davenport said.

Marsha Landolt, 55, the dean of the University of Washington Graduate School, and her husband, Robert Busch, 58, were killed in the avalanche, which occurred between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m., the Camas County Sheriff’s Office reported.

The couple’s daughter and son-in-law, Kelby and Jenna Rovig, and Landolt’s son, Nick Cosan, were sleeping in the loft along with the Rovigs’ two small children.

When they were awakened by the avalanche, the adults first tried to dig the couple out, then one adult stayed behind while the others rode snowmobiles to a neighboring home to call for help, said Camas County Sheriff Dave Sanders.

It took about an hour for rescuers to dig out the couple’s bodies, Davenport said.

About noon Friday, Davenport said, emergency workers heard barking coming from beneath the snow inside the cabin’s living room. They then rescued the family’s dog, which apparently had been pushed through a glass screen into the fireplace, where it was able to get air through the chimney.

Landolt had been dean and a vice provost of the university since 1996, university spokesman Bob Roseth said. She was previously director of the university’s School of Fisheries.

Soldier Mountain is in the Sawtooth National Forest about 80 miles east of Boise.