{"id":2452387,"date":"2019-12-18T22:10:00","date_gmt":"2019-12-19T05:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=317950"},"modified":"2019-12-18T22:10:00","modified_gmt":"2019-12-19T05:10:00","slug":"slide-was-in-open-terrain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/slide-was-in-open-terrain\/","title":{"rendered":"Slide was in open terrain"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

COPPER MOUNTAIN RESORT \u2014 On Saturday, Summit County ski areas were celebrating one of the season\u2019s first major snowstorms.<\/p>\n

The fresh snow stressed the region\u2019s snowpack, which is set atop a weak layer of October snow. The Colorado Avalanche Information Center was reporting that avalanche danger above tree line was high in the backcountry and that \u201clarge and dangerous human-triggered avalanches\u201d were \u201cvery likely.\u201d<\/p>\n

Inbounds, resorts were having problems of their own. Copper Mountain Resort reported 10 inches that morning on top of 7 that had fallen the previous day. Skiers and snowboarders were eager to get first tracks on newly opened terrain, but experienced backcountry skiers began to notice signs of trouble.<\/p>\n

Reid Kalmus, an accomplished local backcountry skier and snowboarder, said he was snowboarding with a friend Saturday morning and came upon the entrance to a traverse that led into the Enchanted Forest area. There was a line of people waiting for ski patrol to drop a rope, opening the entrance to the traverse.<\/p>\n

Kalmus said there were about 20 to 25 people in front of him and, by the time the rope dropped, about 15 more people behind him. The group began traversing above a wind fence around a ridge.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone was struggling to posthole and wade through the deep snow,\u201d Kalmus said. \u201cThat\u2019s what raised my first area of awareness. We kept going forward and people were getting stuck, taking off their snowboards. Finally, this guy in front of me jumped over the wind fence about 20 yards past where the rope was dropped.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following the man over the fence, Kalmus dropped into the Enchanted Forest terrain.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hopped over that fence and the whole floor beneath me just ripped out,\u201d Kalmus said. \u201cI just stood right where I was and watched the whole slope propagate downhill.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kalmus said he then looked upslope for his friend.<\/p>\n

\u201cImmediately after, this lady screamed, and there was a second fracture line 20 to 30 meters above the wind fence,\u201d Kalmus said.<\/p>\n

According to Kalmus, three people were pushed into the wind fence from the upper slide and were partially buried. Another man happened to have a backcountry kit with a shovel and started digging people out of the snow. Kalmus estimated there were 40 to 50 skiers and snowboarders present.<\/p>\n

No one was injured in the slides.<\/p>\n

\u201cI decided to ski the slope, and I came back, and the rope was back up,\u201d Kalmus said.<\/p>\n

Copper spokeswoman Taylor Prather reported Sunday that an avalanche occurred in a closed area of the resort and that an individual was caught on camera disregarding the closure. After further investigation, Copper ski patrol concluded there were two avalanches: one on open terrain and one on permanently closed terrain.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt approximately 10:31 a.m. on Saturday, Dec. 14, Copper Mountain Ski Patrol received two calls which reported an avalanche in the area of Lower Enchanted Forest. Ski Patrol responded immediately and followed standard protocol of performing a hasty search, finding no one in need of assistance and no witnesses to provide a statement. The area where ski patrol was dispatched to was located in a permanently closed area of Lower Enchanted Forest,\u201d according to a statement released by Copper officials.<\/p>\n

Avalanche Information Center Deputy Director Brian Lazar said inbounds slides on open terrain are rare but that slides in closed areas are not.<\/p>\n

Lazar explained that ski areas encompass a lot of avalanche-prone terrain and that avalanches in closed areas, whether purposely or naturally triggered, are relatively common during and after a big storm.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very rare for avalanches to happen inbounds on open ski slopes,\u201d Lazar said. \u201cThey do a remarkable job of reducing the risk of avalanches, but we are still dealing with a natural environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite riding inbounds, Kalmus said the dangerous backcountry conditions that day were on his mind and he was concerned about the conditions of the traverse, especially when a large group set out on it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith that in the back of my head and then traversing over to a new aspect, that was a definite concern,\u201d Kalmus said. \u201cJust by the way everyone was acting, I had a pretty good feeling that no one knew how to deal with an avalanche.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prather said the resort\u2019s dispatch received two calls about slides, but by the time ski patrol arrived, no one was at the scene and no witnesses were present to give testimony about what happened.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re trying to work with Reid (Kalmus) because the only call that was given to patrol was just an initial call,\u201d Prather said. \u201cAnd when we went down there, there was no one there. No one filed a witness statement.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to Kalmus, skier Jack Gallaway provided a firsthand account of the incident via an email to the Summit Daily News.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was with a group of friends skiing down Hallelujah Ridge at Copper on Saturday,\u201d Gallaway wrote. \u201cAt the bottom of that run, we saw dozens of skiers traversing over to Lower Enchanted, and the sign on the gate was flipped to open.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gallaway said he and his group followed the line of skiers in search of \u201cuntouched powder,\u201d but once they reached the Lower Enchanted Forest advanced run, he felt conditions were unsafe.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt became clear to me that the run shouldn\u2019t have been opened, as snow was sliding down from all sides and the run was already peppered with half-buried skiers,\u201d Gallaway wrote.<\/p>\n

Copper Mountain is asking those who were in the area at the time of the avalanches to provide a witness statement by calling patrol headquarters at 970-968-3311.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf a skier or snowboarder were to witness an inbounds avalanche, they should report it immediately by calling ski patrol and then stay on scene in a safe area and wait for further instruction,\u201d Copper officials wrote in the statement.<\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

COPPER MOUNTAIN RESORT \u2014 On Saturday, Summit County ski areas were celebrating one of the season\u2019s first major snowstorms. The fresh snow stressed the region\u2019s snowpack, which is set atop a weak layer of October snow. The Colorado Avalanche Information Center was reporting that avalanche danger above tree line was high in the backcountry and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2452387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-19 01:35:34","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2452387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2452387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2452387\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2452387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2452387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2452387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}