With big snow falls across Colorado and Utah right now, avalanches are on the increase. A 21 year old skier was buried in an avalanche at Steamboat on Sunday local time after traversing into the resort’s apron between the double black Chute 1 and Chute 2.
The run was inbounds but was closed at the top at the time. However the skiers traversed into the area at Big Meadow which was open.
This area is below the chutes and the avalanche is believed to have been human triggered from below.
The resort, like most of Colorado, currently has an unstable snowpack after early winter snowfalls in October (over a metre) followed by warm temperatures and rainfall and then new snow this week.
Steamboat ski patrol were dispatched in the early afternoon and within nine minutes the skier was dug out and taken by ambulance to the nearby medical centre. He was conscious and breathing at the time.
Sadly a backcountry skier died on the weekend in Utah on the backcountry slopes in an area that can be accessed from the top of 9990 in The Canyons, Park City.
