Panic Helps Cause Mountain Deaths

Inexperience, panic, and a snowslide combined to cause the deaths of two mountain-climbing University students, Jacques Parysko '54 and Phill W. Longenecker 3G, who perished in Tuckerman's Ravine on Mt. Washington, N.H., over the week-end.

According to veteran climbers, Parysko died ironically. After miraculously escaping the avalanche which buried the students' igloo. Parysko, lightly-clad, bypassed numerous places where he could have been saved. He was found only 20 yards away from a cabin occupied by eight University students on a skiing trip.

Searches later discovered Longenecker buried under about four feet of snow, still in his sleeping bag, amid the icy remains of the igloo. It appeared that a failing ice block from the igloo had previously knocked him unconscious.

Members of the University Mountaineering Club blamed Parysko's death on inexperience. They said that in his panic to get help after the snowslide, he passed by at least three emergency telephones, two first aid caches containing blankets and chemical heat pads, and the Tuckerman Ravino Ski Sholter, which, although unoccupied at the present time, is available for climbers in distress.

They also believed that if the two climbers had built their igloo in a more favorable location, the tragedy would have been averted. They said that the igloo was constructed on the exposed floor of Tuckerman's Ravine, directly below the cliffs loaded with snow with snow ready to avalanche.

The students had built the igloo earlier with Longenecker's sister, Polly, 20, a senior at Connecticut College for Women. She returned to an Appalachian Mountain Club but for the night, however.

When Parysko's body was found, a party of veteran climbers and members of the Mt. Washington Volunteer Ski Patrol stationed nearby began the search for Longenecker, originally believed to have escaped the avalanche.

Parysko, 23, was a commuter and lived with his widowed mother at 3 Langdon Sq., Cambridge. He was born in France and lived there during the war.

Longenecker, 25, was a graduate of Colorado College, and a resident of Teledo, Ohio.