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A Rise in Avalanche Deaths Inside Resort Boundaries

By Rocky Thompson on November 13th, 2012

A new ESPN article takes a look at the spike in avalanche deaths that have been occurring on inbounds, open resort terrain.

“They’re still rare, but since 2005, inbounds slides have killed people in Nevada, California, Colorado, Utah, Idaho and Wyoming, totaling eight fatalities at some of the most famous resorts in America.” Before 2005, only three people were killed during in-bounds slides.

The increase in deaths could be attributed to more ski resorts offering out-of-bounds-style terrain and glade runs, opening new territory to sate the public’s hunger for backcountry-style skiing in a safe environment. Or you could blame an uptick in skiing in general, or if you wanted to go conspiracy theory, you could argue that ski patrol is under more pressure from resort management to open runs earlier and keep them open longer, pushing the boundaries of what’s safe to ski.

Whatever the cause, it’s something that will probably never go away entirely. There’s a risk every time you head out skiing, unless of course you move to the Midwest. You’ll be safe from avalanches there.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 13th, 2012 at 6:00 am and is filed under Current Events, Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “A Rise in Avalanche Deaths Inside Resort Boundaries”

  1. Steve November 13th, 2012 at 4:08 pm

    I’m guessing that because of the progression of gear and skills, skiers nowadays are just getting into more and more gnarly zones inside of controlled boundaries. Therefore starting more and more inbounds slides.

  2. Steve-O November 14th, 2012 at 10:46 am

    It’s not about ski areas, or more numbers, or more sidecountry. It’s the Red Bull/ XGames/GoPro phenom. Nowadays it’s not just about skiing powder; it’s about going totally huckin’ rad bro’, and getting your web edit out by Monday. Aside from cliff jumps, actual skiing skills haven’t improved much at all over the last 30 years, but the race to do boastable lines has certainly amped up. Several of these deaths were ‘inbounds’ before the areas even opened. First big snowfall of the season, there’s always tragedy in the newsfeed.