A young skier died after being caught in an avalanche in closed terrain on Vail Mountain today, Sunday Jan. 22nd.
According to the Vail Daily News:
The skier was identified as [13-year-old] Taft Conlin, of Eagle, said Kara Bettis, Eagle County coroner.
The avalanche occurred on Upper Prima Cornice, which is a double-black-diamond run on Vail Mountain, said Don Dressler, snow ranger for the U.S. Forest Service’s Eagle-Holy Cross Ranger District. The area was closed to skiers, Dressler said.
“There were two in the party skiing together,” Dressler said. “One was able to ski for help. When Ski Patrol was able to respond, that was when they started to perform CPR.”
The call came in to Vail Ski Patrol at around 1:40 p.m, and Ski Patrol responded immediately, according to a statement from Vail Mountain.
“Ski Patrol provided advanced life support and transported the patient to an awaiting ambulance,” the statement said. “He was then transported to the Vail Valley Medical Center. The incident is under investigation.”
An avalanche warning remains in effect for Vail and Summit County
| Avalanche Warning in Effect through 01/23/2012 12:00 PM |
An avalanche warning is in effect for today. Natural and human triggered avalanches are very likely. Be very cautious near or below any slope over 30 degrees. You will be able to easily trigger avalanches on most aspects and elevations. Triggering avalanches from distances of 100 feet away or greater is likely. The largest avalanches will occur on slopes facing north through east to southeast near and above treeline. Widespread but smaller avalanches are likely on all other slopes.Colorado Avalanche Information Center |
tough year this year, huh? so sorry to hear this. Hope this is the last one.
C’mon guys let’s be carefull…
Could you all post a photo of the trail map and where this area is? Just curious if they went through a closed gate or under one of those intimidating thin ropes.
There are two gates to the Prima Cornice area, with a long stretch of high double rope between them. To get to the spot they were in, they could have ducked the closed rope on the upper gate (unlikely), ducked the high rope before the lower gate, or went in the lower entrance and hiked uphill a short distance, which I have heard is what they are claiming they did.
I was there yesterday. Prima Cornice was clearly closed, as were many other areas. I saw two other in-bounds slides too.
Actually none of you guys no where he was neither does the reporter…There were actually more than two kids in the party. Where they skied was not roped off so you tell me if thats closed or out of bounds. They Skied that four more times before.
I live in Vail and knew the kid and he did duck a rope there where 3 boys and this run is very common on powder days like Sunday.
You folks might want to check out this post from the boy’s family. Sounds like he did not duck rope and was not in closed terrain as Vail’s PR Dept. has said: http://opensnow.com/forum#/discussion/72/vail-avalanche .
Very interesting that Vail would try to spin this.