Nice article.
That stuff happens more in the mountains than we usually know about.
I've found Bighorn sheep and Mountain Goat skulls many times at the bottoms of avalanche chutes.
Although I've never found a "group" kill.

I've seen elk walk straight up into a lightning storm. It was a flat top Mesa with no trees. Lightning striking all around us. It didn't bother them at all but I was getting off the Mesa. I was hunting with an ML and didn't get a shot.

Ken

I was in the mountains in Montana.

Found 8 elk carcasses at the outlet of a lake. most likely fell through the ice.

It is a tough world out there.

Since I live nearby it should be no surprise i have hunted that area. Central Idaho has some of the shortest and steepest country I have ever seen in the lower 48. You see these washouts all too frequently. With wolves, hoof rot, CWD and a million new blue staters moving in, we did not need this.

Navaluk, You're spot on about the problems our game herds face. Especially, the flood of knothead liberal nitwits moving in here and Montana.

Sad, we had a hay shed collapse and kill 10 animals a few years ago during a heavy snow. The elk were enjoying a forbidden snack and fate intervened. In an avalanche accident like that I bet it created a Beat Smorgasbord for a while.

I have a couple stories which are germane to this thread.
In the first, we were returning home one January evening and a small herd of elk barreled across our driveway in front of us. They were close and one actually leapt over the hood of the car. Not an unusual occurrence at our place, it was startling, nonetheless. A few days later, I was walking the dogs along a trail which runs parallel to the drive and I saw a cow elk standing in the draw with her head down. Not wanting the dogs to bother her, I circle around, upwind, figuring she would catch our scent and leave. She didn't move. In fact, she really didn't move; not so much as an ear twitch. I moved closer and once I was within ten yards or so I could see why she was so still. She had jump a windfallen spruce and her neck went right into the vee formed by two other small trees which were part of a tangle. Her front feet were just off the ground because of this. Her rear feet were just off the ground as she was held up by the spruce. She was frozen solid. I figured she had jumped the spruce, gotten stuck, and strangled. Because it was so cold andshe was kind of concealed, there was little scent and she was difficult to see so even the ravens had not found her. It was at least a month before the coyotes found her.
Another suspected incident concerns mountain goats. There is a basin I often hike into just because I like it. It had a resident flock of goats; 14 or so of them. Nannies, kids, and young billies. There were two mature billies which were close by but seldom right with the bunch. These goats were almost always there and, during warm weather, they spent time under an overhang where it was cool and shaded. I saw them there repeatedly. One time I got up to the basin and I couls see it looked different. The face of the cliff, above that overhang, had come down and the undercut was gone. I never saw the flock again. I saw the two billies but no nannies and no kids. I don't know for sure but I think they were buried.
A couple years later, I drew a goat tag and went up there again. I found the two billies in an adjacent basin and climbed up to it. I watched them for quite a while and put the crosshairs on the bigger one. I was with a friend and told him, "I could hit that goat but I just don't want to. They look better here than they would on the wall." He agreed and we both ended the season with unfilled tags. Regards, Bill

Nice story nice ending ... I've decided I will only shoot another bear if he's over 10' squared and pretty otherwise I'll shoot them with my iphone Now elk, that's a different story!