So it was with little hope that the searchers helicoptered to the west face. Where the arms of the avalanche converged, lines of probers jammed poles through the snow, expecting at any moment to hit something solid—another pack, a boot, a body. Progress was agonizingly slow. In some places, the avalanche debris was too hard to penetrate. They tried a magnetometer, and it sounded once, but intensive digging revealed only flecks of metal in a stone.

Finally a prober broke through and struck something soft. Digging, the team discovered a buried parka and, in its pocket, something even more promising—a camera with film in it and an additional roll of exposed black-and-white film. All of the rolls were flown off to be developed; they arrived back at five o'clock the next morning. The color film found at the camp merely chronicled the boat trip across Waterton Lake. Virtually all of the black-and-whites, however, were taken as the team approached the north face. Some of the images were sharp enough to show the upper mountain covered by a heavy blanket of snow, indicating that conditions were considerably worse than when rescuers went in.

The images were, in their innocence, unbearably poignant, as if apparitions of the climbers themselves stood before the rangers, offering clues to their route but little hope for their safe return. Here was a photo of Jerry Kanzler and Clare Pogreba, best of friends, sitting in Alf Baker's boat and staring off into the middle distance. Here was Ray Martin, on the dock, smiling his goofy smile and standing half again as tall as his companions.

On January 7, with fresh avalanches still plummeting down the west face and winds gusting up to 50 miles per hour, the searchers returned to Goat Haunt and packed up the boys' base camp. Back at Waterton Townsite, Bob Frauson called a supplier for one more set of equipment: five body bags, to be delivered in unmarked boxes.