Just want to send out some positive vibes to my backcountry brethren in the PNW, where two separate avalanches at Stevens Pass and Snoqualmie Pass took the lives of 3 skiers and 1 snow boarder today. With this year’s sketchy snowpack, these incidents seems like they could have happened anywhere in the west.
The avalanche on Snowqualmie Pass and near the Alpental ski area, was triggered by a snowboarder, which subsequently swept him over a 500′ cliff to his death. At Stevens Pass, and in an out-of-bounds area, 12 skiers were caught in another separate avalanche event. 3 of them were unresponsive to attempts at CPR and perished.
No names have been released yet, and we are all holding our breath that is no one we know. But, we also send our deepest condolences to all friends and families involved.
I have word on three of the people that died in the PNW today. Chris Rudolph, Jim Jack and Johnnie Brennan.
Jim Jack was a well known skier, a big part of the FreeSkiing World Tour and appeared in numerous ski films over the years.
They all will be missed my many.
whether we know them or not it is equally tragic. Prayers to the families.
Is there a total for deaths in the west this year. And what is the yearly avg? Just curious. Seems like there has been a lot.
Sorry to hear this. Please be careful out there
Steve,
The avy/cliff death is outside of the actualy alpental resort. Tragic day nonetheless.
I was skiing inbounds Alpental(today) after the Vertfest… This is sad news…
Now I am back in Canada reading about this! Sad day….
fish = the CAIC maintains a lit of accidents and historical statistics:
http://avalanche.state.co.us/acc/acc_us.php
here is a link to a first hand account of the avalanche near Steven’s Pass from Elyse Saugstad, who credits her survival to her ABS backpack.
http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/19/10450796-survivor-of-deadly-washington-avalanche-it-was-like-a-washing-machine