A pair of backcountry skiers died Monday in an avalanche in the Cascade Mountains in Oregon.

Terence Skjersaa, 57, and Susan Skjersaa, 52, hailed from Bend, Oregon. They were overdue on Monday night and their friends found them dead beneath the avalanche late that night, the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office said in an alert.

Their bodies were recovered Tuesday in Deschutes National Forest.

The avalanche had occurred about 6,700 feet up on a southward-facing slope, and ran about 320 feet vertically before crashing into a clump of trees.

The time of the avalanche and what caused it are unknown, but the Central Oregon Avalanche Center said the couple likely “triggered the avalanche themselves.”

The center classified the avalanche as a “D2” on the destructive force scale. D2 avalanches are large, run about as long as a football field and carry about 100 tons of snow.

That is enough to fill the first floor of a large house with debris 6 feet deep, according to Avalanche.org, a partnership between the nonprofit American Avalanche Association and the U.S. Forest Service’s National Avalanche Center.

• Brad Matthews can be reached at bmatthews@washingtontimes.com.