The lone survivor of an avalanche that killed two men near Aspen last week inadvertently set off a series of events that triggered the fatal slide, according to a report by the Colorado Avalanche Information Center.
Jason Luck, 34, of Arvada, was in the lead as the group of college friends ascended 12,300-foot Mount Shimer on March 13. Near the top of a sparsely treed slope, Luck, by accident, remotely triggered a large avalanche in an adjacent bowl several hundred feet away, sending shock waves across the entire slope. Moments later, the snow on which the men were climbing fractured, sweeping the three away, according to the report.
Probably what happened is when youre on your skis and you get on a weak spot in the snowpack, that snow can collapse, said John Snook, a forecaster with the Colorado Avalanche Information Center. That may not trigger an avalanche where youre at, but that collapse can change the whole characteristics of the slope.
Simon Ozanne, a 35-year-old management consultant from New Jersey, and Alexis Dodin, a 32-year-old Frenchman who most recently was living in Buenos Aires, Argentina, died in the slide. The three men had attended college together at the Colorado School of Mines. The trip was a reunion for the friends, but also a Christmas gift to Ozanne from his wife, who is expecting the couples first child.
The CAIC listed avalanche danger for the day as moderate with a special warning to beware of instability on steep, north-facing slopes above tree line, according to the report. The slope where the fatal slide happened is north-facing, near tree line and as steep as 40 degrees.
