Even before the worst of the avalanche season, this has been a bad year for deaths and close-calls in Colorado and elsewhere in North America:
Colorado sidecountry / out-of-bounds avalanche deaths and close calls
1/1-2/2008: One skier, Matthew Gustafson, 33, killed and another skier partially buried in East Vail’s King Tut slidepath, just outside the Vail ski area boundary.
1/0-8/2008: Rescuers find Adam Putnam, 36, and Rachel Fehl, 30, alive after the pair of snowboarders spent three nights lost near the Santa Fe ski area. The two left the Santa Fe ski area three days earlier to ride out-of-bounds.
1/0-4/2008: Snowboarder Jesse Brigham dies in an avalanche in East Vail’s Charlie’s Death Chutes outside the Vail ski area.
1/0-5/2008: Two Albuquerque snowboarders, Michael George and Kyle Kerschen, both 27, go missing after leaving the Wolf Creek ski area boundary. The two still have not been found.
1-2/30/2007: A skier is partially buried in an avalanche above Lost Lake outside the backcountry gate of Eldora Ski Area.
1-2/18/2007: One unknown skier partially buried in East Vail.
Outside Colorado:
1/2-5/2008: A series of avalanches just outside the boundary of southern California’s Mountain High ski area kill three skiers. Off-duty Mountain High patroller Michael McKay, 23, was the first killed. Then Mountain High ski patroller Darren Coffey, 33, and television actor Christopher Allport, 60, were killed in a separate slide. A day later, 24-year-old snowboarder Oscar Gonzales Jr. was rescued after spending the night outdoors after he left the Mountain High ski area boundary.
1/1-8/2008: Peter Bowle-Evans, 61, of Golden, B.C. dies in an avalanche outside the boundary of Western Canada’s Kicking Horse ski area. The veteran hang-glider’s death marks the 11th avalanche fatality in Canada of the season.
1/1-3/2008: Two skiers are killed in an avalanche just outside the boundary ropes of northern Montana’s Whitefish ski area. Anthony Kollmann, 19, of Kalispell, MT, was killed in an avalanche that also killed 36-year-old Whitefish resident David Gogolak. 1/0-2/2008: A 29-year-old skier is killed after he and a 21-year-old snowboarder were caught in an avalanche in a permanently closed section of British Columbia’s Whistler ski area.
1-2/09/2007: The search for three snowboarders last seen near the Crystal Mountain ski area south of Seattle is suspended. Kevin Carter, 26, Devlin Williams, 29, and Phillip Hollins, 41, are suspected buried in the avalanche-prone terrain near the ski area.
