Its official name is Johnson Peak, but it’s more than earned its nickname of Killer Mountain, having claimed at least nine lives in two major disasters a little more than a year apart.
Four were killed in 1965 when the mountain unexpectedly crumbled, sending 47 million cubic tonnes of rock, forest and snow plummeting into the valley below. A year later, another five were killed in the crash of a routine training flight by Royal Canadian Air Force 442 Search and Rescue Squadron out of Comox, B.C.
Aside from the distant hum of traffic and the occasional tourist stretching their legs at the nearby rest stop, the valley is quiet. The occasional crow caws and flutters by. The forest is reclaiming this mountain, hiding its scars and the graves of those unlucky enough to catch Mother Nature in a foul mood.
Mary Kalmakoff just wanted to visit her sister. The 21-year-old from Shoreacres, near Castlegar, B.C., travelled with her friends Dennis Arlitt, 23, and Bernie Beck, 27, of Penticton, B.C. along Highway 3 toward her sister’s Agassiz home. In the early morning hours of January 9, 1965, Mary and her friends’ road trip came to a halt at the foot of an avalanche that buried the highway. Drivers of a hay truck and a tanker had also stopped.
Tanker driver Norman Stephanishin convinced an approaching Greyhound bus to return to the nearest lodge to call for help. That decision saved his life and the lives of those onboard the bus as soon after, the mountain came crashing down, burying Mary, Dennis, Bernie and hay truck driver Tom Starchuk in the debris.
Rock and snow buried the Nicolum Valley bottom more than 70 metres deep in places, obliterating Outram Lake in the process. Clay and water from the lake was thrown violently up the opposite mountain to a height of up to 60 metres. Three kilometres of the Hope-Princeton highway was washed out, cutting off the Lower Mainland from the rest of the province.
RCMP aided by volunteers from Hope, Princeton and Chilliwack searched the area, dodging rocks and boulders still careening down the mountain. All four left at the avalanche site were killed. Mary and Dennis were fated to remain buried in the rubble.
A year later, rescuers were back on the mountain.
On April 23, 1966, a six-man crew from Comox Air Force Base on Vancouver Island flew into the mountain, obscured by cloud and fog. An investigation was unable to determine why the crew flew so low that day.
The wreckage from the crash of the 442 Squadron remains on the mountain as well. Only one of six crew members survived the impact – recovering from burns over nearly 70 per cent of his body.
Experts and scientists can’t confirm what caused the mountain to slide in 1965, but they have theories. Initially, the cause was attributed to two small earthquakes in the early morning hours of January 9, but now scientists theorize the evidence of earthquakes was actually the force of the slide impacting the valley floor and the opposite mountain. Pre-existing faults and shear zones that slowly deteriorated over a period of time are the most likely cause. What triggered the landslide, if anything, remains a mystery .
The rest stop and lookout at the foot of the Hope Slide is 55 metres above the original valley floor. It’s unlikely that development will impede the reforestation of the land, allowing those nine unlucky souls to rest in peace in the quiet of the valley.
