A skier has died after being buried in an avalanche just east of Vail on Saturday, the same area where a skier was killed Jan. 4.
Eagle County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Shannon Cordingly says the avalanche was reported around 11 a.m. Two skiers were buried, but one was able to get out. That skier, Jackie Rossman, 45, went for help. Rescuers were able to locate him from his 911 call.
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Matthew Gustafson, 33, was identified as the skier who died. The death is under investigation, and an autopsy will be performed.
Gustafson and Rossman had avalanche beacons. They were outside the boundaries of the Vail ski area in an area called the East Chutes.
Rescue workers continued other searches as experts warned that heavy snow and high winds have made backcountry skiing treacherous.
“It’s prime conditions for avalanches across Colorado,” said Cordingly.
A search for a missing 20-year-old woman near Alamosa has been called off because of dangerous conditions.
Thirteen searchers were flown by helicopter Saturday to the precarious mountain area in Southern Colorado where the woman disappeared following an avalanche Thursday morning.
Lygon Stevens, 20, has been missing about 20 miles east of Alamosa.
State experts tested the slopes near the avalanche that is at least 12,000 feet in elevation to make sure it is safe to search, said Alamosa County Undersheriff John Bianca.
He said the last of the rescuers were flown out of the avalanche area at 2:30 p.m. because of the danger of other avalanches.
People from across the state have volunteered to help in the search but the sheriff’s office is limiting the number of searchers because of treacherous conditions, said Carol Orton, a spokeswoman for the Alamosa Sheriff’s Office.
Stevens, a music student at the University of Northern Colorado, and her 22-year-old brother Nick, a Colorado State University student, had been hiking in the area for five days when the avalanche struck Thursday morning, Bianca said.
Nick Stevens couldn’t find his sister and left a tent and other equipment near the avalanche for her to use, he said. He spent Thursday night on the mountain and hiked until about 8:30 a.m. Friday to get to a point where he could call out on his cellular phone to get help.
Nick Stevens was hospitalized.
The siblings are expert hikers who recently climbed Mt. McKinley in Alaska, Bianca said.
Stevens’ father is participating in the search, Orton said.
The deadly avalanche near Vail happened in the same backcountry where 27-year-old Vail snowboarder Jesse Brigham was killed Jan. 4. It is also where fatal slides occurred in 1992 and 1996, according to the Colorado Avalanche Information Center.
Meanwhile, the search in the Wold Creek Ski Area for missing snowboarders Michael George and Kyle Kerschen, both 27 and from Albuquerque, N.M., has grown in to a missing-persons investigation. The two were reported missing Jan. 5.
Mineral County Sheriff Fred Hosselkus said his department suspended the search Friday because searchers have found no signs of their whereabouts after seven days.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Kirk Mitchell: 303-954-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com
