Avalanche Accident Aspen CO 1/28/95 Most of this information has been compiled with the help of Steve Crocket, Emergency Services coordinator for Pitkin County. An actual site visit has not been made so some of the information is based on somewhat unreliable data from the involved parties. THE ACCIDENT A Party of 4 left from the T-Lazy-7 Ranch at the end of the wintertime Maroon Creek Road at 8:00am on Saturday Jan 28th. They were headed to climb Pyramid Peak, a 14,000+ foot peak in the Maroon Bells/ Snowmass Wilderness. They party consisted of an unrelated father/son and husband/wife (Rumanian emigres) couple. They lived in the Denver area and had come together through the Colorado Mountain Club. At least some of the party was familiar with the area and they claimed to be experienced climbers. No one in the party was carrying avalanche beacons, probes or shovels. They had planned to ascend to an area sometimes known as 'the amphitheater' where they were intending to bivouac for the night. They used the normal wintertime ascent route. The wife and the father/son were all wearing snowshoes. The husband was wearing cross-country skis. At about 5:30 P.M. the group was traversing up a steep slope on the way to the amphitheater. It appears they were working in and out of some trees in a snake line around the left flank of the avalanche path. At the time of the slide, the leading climber was about 50' right of the flank. The conjecture is that this was the person who triggered the slide. This person rode about 300' before ending up on the top of the debris. About 45' below was the second climber who was right on the flank of the slide and was able to grab some trees. The third person was to the left of the slide in the trees and was not affected. The fourth person was about 100' below the third skier and 150' right of the flank. He was hit with the full brunt of a 300' wide crown breaking about 3-4' deep from about 230 feet above him. The slide ran about 1400' vertical (all these numbers are very approximate). His position was not fixed very well by those above him in the dwindling light. The slide path has the possibility of running to 2 different areas and is choked with strainers. The remaining 3 skiers worked down the debris and attempted to probe with skis and ski poles for approximately 1 hr. As dark closed and they began to worry about their own safety, they retreated to a warming hut at Maroon Lake maintained by T-Lazy-7 guest ranch. The son of the father/son team traveled for several hours to the T-Lazy-7 ranch where he alerted Mountain Rescue Aspen at 12:40am on the 28th. THE RESCUE Early the next morning, Rick Deane, owner of T-Lazy-7, left via snowmobile to retrieve the remaining skiers. As the unofficial gatekeeper of Maroon Creek, Rick had suspended his commercial snowmobile tours up the creek because of high avalanche danger but went to retrieve these people anyway. No search was initiated because of the very real threat of further avalanche activity affecting a rescue party. Weather conditions prevented immediate air surveillance of the area. After the weather cleared, both fixed wing and helicopter flights to the area were undertaken and the reporting parties were taken along to pinpoint the accident site. After all this, there still exists some confusion about the exact location of the accident. The number of strainers in the path means the body could be anywhere along the path of 300' wide x 1400' long. The Pitkin County sheriffs dept has postponed the recovery indefinitely due to threats to the safety of rescuers. THE WEATHER Early winter came with very low snowfall, December arrived with a very long drought that brought very weak surface snows accompanied by surface hoar up to 1.5cm. In January it began to snow. The two weeks preceding this accident had fairly heavy snowfall accompanied by strong winds and very cold temperatures. At the Aspen Highlands Study plot January snows were 175% of average. 5 days previous to this accident, another skier had been killed on the backside of Aspen Mt., less than 10 miles distant. The avalanche danger was rated high with an Avalanche Warning in effect from the Colorado Avalanche Information Center. COMMENTS Supposedly, these skiers had surveyed this climb the preceding week and had decided that it was safe. They were climbing unprepared for avalanche hazard as indicated by their lack of avalanche beacons or other safety equipment. They were also climbing a very aggressive wintertime route during very high avalanche danger. In the 2.5 weeks since the avalanche, the weather has been hot and dusty and the avalanche hazard has eased almost to low everywhere. Timing might have been everything on this climb. Submitted by Kevin Heinecken Avalanche Technician Aspen Highlands Ski Area kevhein@csn.org