Body of 9-year-old recovered from 200-foot crevasse in Alaska

Officials have recovered the body of a 9-year-old boy who died over the weekend after crashing his snowmobile through a glacier in Alaska.

Shjon Brown’s body was recovered around 12:40 a.m. on Monday, Alaska State Troopers spokeswoman Megan Peters said in an email to reporters.

Shjon of Fairbanks apparently died in the accident when his vehicle fell down a 200-foot hole while he was snowmobiling with his father on Saturday in the Hoodoo Mountains off the Richardson Highway between Delta Junction and Glennallen.

The accident was about five miles north of the Arctic Man Classic, a race involving snow enthusiasts, using skies, boards and snowmobiles.

The father was watching from a hillside when the boy went around a small mound and was never seen again. Instead the father saw a 200-foot hole, known as a moulin, which forms when water erodes the glacier’s ice.

Because of the depth of the hole and the condition of the ice, recovery was difficult, requiring rescuers to rappel into the crevasse and search the bottom where the boy’s goggles and helmet were seen, along with the snowmobile.

Climbers from North American Outdoor Institute and troopers from the U.S. Army Black Rapids-Northern Warfare Training Center responded and aided with the recovery.

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