Body recovered in slide area at B.C. ski resort

A body was found Monday afternoon in a slide area at the Big White Ski Resort near Kelowna, B.C., but police have not yet determined whether it's a snowboarder feared lost in an avalanche a day earlier.

RCMP are trying to determine the identity of the individual to see whether it is the snowboarder reported missing Sunday, spokeswoman Const. Julie Rattee said in a release issued at about 4 p.m.

The RCMP earlier identified the missing snowboarder as Leigh Barnier, 21, an Australian working for the housekeeping department at the Moguls Hotel in Big White. His family is on the way from Australia.

Barnier went missing around 10 a.m. Sunday from the resort and there were fears that he was caught in a large avalanche that came down in steep terrain on the mountain.

Two other people caught in the avalanche were rescued and released. They were uninjured.

There were 10,000 to 11,000 people on the mountain at the time of the avalanche, said Michael Ballingall, the resort's senior vice-president.

Earlier in the day, before the body was found, Ballingall said five separate search teams have been combing the mountain within the resort boundaries and the out-of-bounds area behind the mountain.

He said two of the teams include dogs, which have been searching in the area of the avalanche.

"What the dog handlers are now telling us is that our dogs aren't getting a scent in that area so we're going to start to expand the search," Ballingall told CBC News.

"It's a big area behind the mountain. We don't know if he's gone there; we don't know if he's in bounds or out of bounds. We don't know where he is."