Peter Roux was an experienced climber, but the Friday hiking trip on Mount Washington proved to be his last. A rescue team has been searching for him since he was reported missing on Friday night, but it wasn’t until early Saturday morning that his body was found on the east side of the mountain.

The 39-year-old from Bartlett, Tennessee apparently planned to climb a gully in Huntington Ravine and later return to the Pinkham Notch base camp. Unfortunately for him, he got caught in an avalanche and was not carrying any adequate equipment, which made it impossible for the man to survive.

According to his wife, her husband for 15 years liked climbing alone, but the Friday gully ascent was fatal despite his experience. Roux appeared to have missed or ignored the Forest Service’s warnings on the high risk of avalanche that day and did not carry proper equipment, such as avalanche cord, portable probes, shovel and an emergency beacon.

More than half of the victims buried after an avalanche survive, and even if the victims manage to remain on the surface of the snow, only 80 percent of them will make it. It takes about 15 to 30 minutes for the victims to suffocate while buried, but hypothermia or severe injuries are also likely to be fatal.

In this case, the rescue team concluded that a snow slope fractured during Roux’s climb, and the avalanche produced carried him all the way to the debris where he was found.  The body was discovered around 7:15 a.m., 400 feet bellow Odell’s Gully. The rescue mission was conducted by members of the U.S Forest Service, the Mountain Rescue Service and the Androscoggin Valley Search and Rescue.

Mount Washington has made numerous victims who, according to the Mount Washington Observatory, died of multiple causes, including avalanches and hypothermia. The last avalanche to produce victims here was in 2002, when two men were killed in Tuckerman Ravine.