Community mourns firefighter killed in Glacier Park avalanche

A skier was killed in an avalanche on Mount Stanton in Glacier National Park Thursday afternoon. He was later identified as Benjamin Parsons, 36, of Kalispell.

Parsons was a Whitefish firefighter and gifted athlete.

Parsons and another skier were about 500 feet from the south face of the summit on the southwest slope when the avalanche occurred.

The companion was not caught in the slide and was able to help Parsons, who was not buried, but was severely injured. The companion called 911 at 3:15 p.m. and a search ensued.

Parks rangers in cooperation with the Flathead County Sheriff’s office and the ALERT helicopter responded as did Two Bear Air helicopter.

The companion was able to comfort Parsons and warm him.

Two Bear Air responded to the skier’s location at about 4 p.m., but Parsons was in critical condition and died at the scene. Parsons was a Whitefish firefighter and avid climber, biker and skier.

A preliminary investigation by Mark Dundas of the Flathead Avalanche Center and Glacier Park rangers revealed that Parsons triggered the slide on a winds lab of snow that was relatively shallow. The slab was sitting on a six-inch hard layer of snow and the hard layer was on a base of sugary snow. When the snow released, it traveled 1,200 to 1,700 feet.

This is the ninth recorded avalanche death in Glacier since it became a park in 1910.

Mount Stanton is relatively easy to get to the in the winter months. It’s about a 3 mile ski to the base from the gate at Lake McDonald Lodge. The mountain is the first prominent peak on the northeast side of Lake McDonald. The summit is relatively low, at 7,750 feet.

There was a profound sadness at the loss of Parsons.

Parsons is survived by his wife and a young son. On Friday, friends mourned the loss of the local hero, whose dedication to his work with the Whitefish Fire Department was held up alongside his accomplishments as a mountain biker and backcountry skier who had secured multiple national titles.

Clint Muhlfeld, a close friend of Parson’s, competed alongside the firefighter on the same mountain-biking team that won two national championships. Muhlfeld remembered him on Friday as a consummate athlete and an active community member who “had so much love for everyone — it just radiated from him.”

“He was always the guy to keep me going when I was down and one of the most incredible human beings I’ve met in my life,” he said. “His zest for life was just unmatched. He got after it so hard, and on so many fronts, with his friends and family to his athletic [ability] to everything he did. He gave it 110 percent.”

Parsons was one of the top ski-mountaineering competitors in the country, as well, competing in the U.S. Ski Mountaineering Championships and winning the annual Whitefish Whiteout randonee race on Big Mountain multiple times.

“From climbing peaks to long hikes in the park to mountain bike racing to skiing, he did it all,” he said. “He’s one of the most amazing athletes.”

Parsons joined the Whitefish Fire Department around the beginning of 2009. In 2010, a story in the Daily Inter Lake detailed Parsons’ life-saving response to a fellow firefighter who had gone into cardiac arrest. Parsons had just finished a 50-mile mountain-biking endurance race covering 8,200 vertical feet in Oregon.

But that didn’t prevent him from successfully resuscitating the local firefighter, who had suffered a heart attack while responding to an unattended barbecue sitting on a wooden porch in a resident’s back yard.

“Honest to God, he was like that every single time, and he treated every patient with the utmost respect, like they were a brother or a sister or a parent,” said Cole Hadley, who started working for the Whitefish Fire Department on the same day as Parsons. “He did it so often, and he wasn’t afraid to tell you that he loved you and he wasn’t afraid to have open, honest conversations with people.”

Hadley is the President of Whitefish Firefighters, Local 3995. He noted that the bond shared by firefighters goes deeper than just coworkers.

“He was a best friend to everybody he met. He loved his job, he loved his crew, he was our brother, and his family is our family,” he said.

Parsons graduated from Flathead High School in 1998 before heading to Montana State University, where he double-majored in geology and education.

After graduating from college, he worked on a trail crew in Glacier Park and at Rocky Mountain Outfitters before he started teaching seventh grade at Fair-Mont-Egan School in Kalispell.

According to his online biography at the Whitefish-based Ridge Mountain Academy, where he worked as a coach and ambassador, Parsons left teaching after two years to pursue his next career as a paramedic.

But his role as a mentor didn’t end there. Since the Ridge Mountain Academy opened its doors in 2015, Parsons was, in the words of academy founder Billy O’Donnell, “the epitome of what Ridge was created around.”

“He was always getting kids to laugh,” O’Donnell said Friday. “Being really intense and serious and passionate about what he loved, he was also so fun and happy.”

He added, “A lot of really elite athletes don’t have all those mentoring, coaching and people skills, and Ben had all those as well as being the best athlete.”

Hundreds of skiers gathered over the weekend for a memorial skin up to the summit of Big Mountain Jan. 8.