THE RECORD

July 24, 1996

BACK TO THE EGG

Suzanne Trevis

December 7, 1970 dawned bright and sunny. With a clear sky and temperatures on the plus side of freezing Felix Chichev, 31, and Vladmir Tushenko, 32, decided to take a short climb up Muchalat Mountain. It was a popular trek amongst visiting seamen who liked to paint their ships names on the broad rock face looking out over the inlet.

The radio officer and 3rd engineer left their vessel, Novikov Priboy, at 2:30pm on the Monday afternoon. They were looking forward to an afternoon of exercise and clean, west coast mountain air and planned to take some pictures of the ship. They never came back.

At 6pm that evening they were reported missing to local authorities. Temperatures that night dropped to 20-25°F. With 12-18 inches of snow already on the ground it became very cold. Other members of the crew helped with the search and early on tracks were found going into a creek bed near the top of the mountain. Searchers hoped to find them in a cave or big tree, but no luck.

Dave Cornish, Gold Rivers civil defense coordinator and fire chief, said that there was no reason to think the men had defected. He did point out that "it is pretty treacherous country. Contours are very close and there are numerous cliffs, canyons and crevasses to get tangled up in."

The bodies were found Friday morning in a creek bed near the base of the mountain. They were less than 15 minutes from level ground and safety, and only 2 miles from their ship.

Search and rescue determined they had probably died within the first 48 hours as they had reached the top of the mountain and were on their way down the other side. The bodies were retrieved by helicopter and eventually returned home.