"I took him up his first 10,000 foot peak when he was 11. It was a big accomplishment for him, and very soon the student outstripped the teacher," said Jim Devonshire, Tony's father.

"To see him climb in his element where he was happy, it's something you can't relate to, but you can just tell when someone's found their place," said Tony's brother Mike.

"Every time he'd go out, I'd give him a kiss and I said be safe. You call me me when you get home.  And he'd always roll his eyes and say yeah, whatever," said Tony's fiance Tempest Emery.

Tony Devonshire and his climbing partner Kevin Dyck were excited to get out in the mountains on Sunday. Up early, safety was Devonshire's first priority...

"After Sunday, when I went back to his room to check out his computer, the website first on the page was the Kananaskis avalanche conditions," said Mike Devonshire.

The danger was listed as low.

"We talked about it on the way up, snow conditions, watching for spindrift. We got to the base of the route and there was lots of debris, which is usually a ticket to a free ride," said Kevin Dyck.

But this would be no free ride. Thirty minutes into the climb, the ice and snow above them let go.

"I can't remember it happening. I just looked up over my shoulder, saw a cloud of snow, screamed avalanche, and hunkered down as best I could," said Dyck. "It took me a few seconds, or it could have been minutes, I don't know, just to get my senses back.  I'm screaming for Tony because I want to hear his voice, but he didn't respond."

Dyck managed to rappel down the sheer ice and he tried to dig his friend out. But he gave up after an hour and went for help.

"We located the scene immediately, the survivor had left his helmet on the debris pile and there was a hole where he had tried to locate his partner," said Burke Duncan of Parks Canada.

By the time rescuers got to Devonshire, it was too late.  Experts tell us that he had taken all the safety precautions he could,  but as Devonshire understood perhaps better than most, the right equipment and the knowledge to use it properly is the key to a lifetime of enjoyment in the mountains.

"Any traveller in the mountains should start off by trying to get some information," said
Chris Stethem,  president of the Canadian Avalanche Foundation. He said climbers should take a course, always check the avalanche bulletins, and carry the right gear.

"There are three pieces of essential equipment. The first is the beacon. If one of us were to go down in an avalanche, the other person would switch to receive and search.  Once you get close, you get out the avalanche probe and you use the probe to pinpoint the location of the person.  Once you've pinpointed the location of the person, you go to the shovel and you dig them out."

Unfortunately, despite all his experience and having taken every precaution, nothing could save Tony Devonshire.

"The lesson is how fragile our lives can be and yet how necessary it is that we use them and get out there and celebrate that life and explore it," said Dirk Trojan, who climbed with Devonshire for ten years.

"I always knew he was kind of the strong one for us. I could always go to him, just that knowing he was always there," said Mike Devonshire.