Mount Bachelor Ski Patrol members found the body of a missing snowboarder Monday afternoon when they spotted a portion of her snowboard near a tree well on the northwest section of the mountain. Kate Svitek, 22, of Bend was last seen boarding down an expert portion of the ski area on Feb. 9 when she became separated from friends.

"We have confirmed it is Kate," Deschutes County Sheriff Les Stiles said Monday evening, as he waited near the ski area's main lodge. Stiles said Svitek's friends identified the woman, who worked as a Mount Bachelor ticket attendant. As his voice cracked slightly and a look of sorrow came over his face, the sheriff said he called Svitek's father, Frank, and told him his daughter's body had been recovered. Svitek graduated last spring from the University of Vermont with a degree in outdoor recreation. She was originally from Pennsylvania, where family and friends gathered Sunday in a memorial service.

Svitek was found in a tree well about 300 yards from the Northwest chairlift, Stiles said. It appears she caught the edge of her board and fell headfirst into the tree well. The snowboard dislodged a large chunk of ice and snow, which fell onto her snowboard, immobilizing her. "She was buried vertically about 9 to 10 feel below the snow line," Stiles said. The tree well had been previously searched, but given the manner in which Svitek was buried, and the large amounts of snow covering her, Stiles said, it made her very difficult to find.

Warm weather has reduced the snow base from about 150 inches at the time of the search to about 130 inches on Monday, Stile said, likely helping the ski patrol spot a portion of the woman's gray and black snowboard at about 12:30 p.m. "A two-person search team was working the area from the point where she was last….when they spotted the snowboard," Stiles said. One of the search team members then stuck a hand in the snow and felt a boot and a leg, he said. The sheriff's office was called shortly thereafter.

Using snowshoes, skis, toboggans and snowmobiles, a mix of ski patrol, Deschutes County Sheriff's Office detectives and rescue workers surveyed and documented the area where Svitek was found and then brought her body off the hill at about 6:30 p.m. Svitek's body was taken to a Bend funeral home, and the Deschutes County Medical Examiner is expected to positively identify her sometime today.
Svitek had been the first person searchers had been unable to locate on the mountain, Mount Bachelor Mountain Manager Matt Janney said in late February.
Hundreds of searchers combed the area for nine days after she turned up missing.
Ski patrol and search and rescue workers from three different states, joined by National Guard helicopters, spent thousands of hours looking for the woman.
But after no results, the search was scaled back Feb. 18. Nonetheless, ski patrol continued to actively search for the woman.