Parks Canada Visitor Safety Specialists and the Mounted Police are searching for the pair, RCMP Corporal Curtis Peters said. He declined to release their identities.

A man and a woman from Boston are presumed dead in Alberta, Canada, after they disappeared while snowshoeing just north of Lake Louise in the Canadian Rockies, where searchers later found signs of a recent avalanche, according to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Peters said the pair were reported missing Tuesday, after they failed to check out of their hotel. Officials found their car a short distance away, on Highway 93 North in Banff National Park on the Icefields Parkway. The hotel had told officials that the pair were on a snowshoeing trip.


When Parks Canada searchers started up the trail that the pair had probably followed, Peters said, they found “a fairly significant avalanche” had hit the area. Parks Canada said the recovery operation is underway. The pair is presumed dead, Peters said.

Avalanche conditions in the area remain high, according to a statement from Parks Canada, and rescuers have not been able to safely venture into the avalanche site.

The families of both snowshoers have been notified, Peters said.