A 19-year-old snowmobiler from Avon, Minn., was killed during an annual family trip to Montana after being caught in an avalanche along a mountainside.

Joshua J. Scepaniak died of asphyxia Thursday afternoon in the Gallatin National Forest after being buried in 3 feet of snow for about five minutes.

Seven other snowmobilers had been riding with Scepaniak at the bottom of a slope along Lionhead Mountain. They performed CPR on him for about two hours before rescuers arrived, but he could not be revived.

"Josh really lived for this trip every year," his mother, Brenda Scepaniak, said Saturday.

For about a decade, a days-long snowmobiling vacation in Gallatin has been a post-Christmas tradition for the Scepaniak family and friends.

This was the third year that Joshua Scepaniak took part, and it was a particularly special trip, his mother said, because it was the first time he, his parents and his three younger siblings all went. "This is my Christmas right here," she said he told his family as they packed. "This is what I love."

Scepaniak is the second snowmobiler killed by an avalanche this winter in Gallatin and the third Minnesotan in 2006. In early January, snowmobilers Loren Samuelson, 49, of Big Lake, Minn., and Tracy Narragon, 38, of Atwater, Minn., were killed a day apart by avalanches in Gallatin.

'Weak snowpack'

"We've got a real weak snowpack this season," said Scott Schmidt of the Gallatin National Forest Avalanche Center. Such conditions, with thin and unstable bottom layers of snow, are typical at the start of winter, he said.

He said that while the Christmas and New Year's holidays bring the most visitors to Gallatin, it would generally be safer if they would wait until at least February.

Scepaniak and nearly 20 relatives and friends got to Montana late Wednesday, just after more than a foot of snow had fallen.

The next morning, they split into two groups to go out riding: Scepaniak, his cousin Jacob and six friends were in one group, and his parents and other family members were in the other.

Before they separated, Scepaniak's father, Joe, said goodbye to his son's group, Brenda Scepaniak said. "You guys be careful," Brenda said Joe told them. "You've done this before, you know where you're going. Just bring everybody back, and if you need to leave a sled, leave it there."

Schmidt and Jacob Scepaniak gave this account:

About 1:30 p.m. Joshua Scepaniak's group was riding in a line when it reached a grove of trees along Lionhead Mountain.

Scepaniak, fourth in the line of riders, had just gone past the trees when snow from the avalanche hit him, knocking him off his Arctic Cat and 30 to 40 feet down the mountainside.

Some other riders saw what happened and quickly located him. But it took them five minutes to shovel through the snow and pull him free. They immediately started CPR and didn't stop before a rescue crew arrived about 3:30 p.m.

"We were hoping," Jacob Scepaniak said. "We got color back in him for a little while," but there were no other signs of life, he said.