The crowd on Colorado Avenue in downtown Telluride got a front-row seat to the raw power of mother nature when an avalanche was triggered above the town. Two slides on the slopes of Ajax Mountain, one of Telluride’s iconic peaks, were triggered from a helicopter at the end of the box canyon.

Tim Konrad is the founder of Unofficial Networks and a passionate skier with over two decades of experience in the ski industry. In 2006, he launched the blog from Lake Tahoe with his brother John, evolving...