MOUNT BEAUTY police are studying footage from GoPro cameras found on the two snowboarders who died on Mount Bogong this week.
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They hope the footage will make clearer the circumstances that led to long-term friends Daniel Kerr and Martin Buckland being buried under metres of snow.
The men’s bodies were found about 60 metres apart and about 500 metres from their campsite at Michell’s Hut, above Eskdale Spur.
Mr Kerr’s body was brought down from the mountain on Monday and Mr Buckland’s on Tuesday night.
Sgt Charlie Duncan said police hoped to reconstruct the tragedy from the GoPro files they had accessed.
“We’ve looked at some footage, mainly to make sure all the evidence is available to us,” he said.
“But our main focus has been dealing with the families.
“It is a sensitive area we had to get right.
“They’re very, very distraught, as you would expect.”
Sgt Duncan said the bodies had been taken to Melbourne.
Four Mount Beauty officers are involved in compiling evidence and preparing a report for the coroner.
Sgt Duncan said they were working fast so evidence did not degrade.
“We have collected all the data we’ve picked up in the course of the search and the equipment we’ve recovered from the field,” he said.
“There are photographs and reports from members.
“We’ll get to a stage where we’ll start to break it down and try to do a reconstruction of what happened.
“We’ll work it out with maps, snow condition data and information from people on the ground.
“The coroner will determine the cause of the deaths but certainly the men were caught up in an avalanche.”
Sgt Duncan said about 35 people from various agencies had been involved in the search and rescue operation.