First avalanche death of the season

This is truly tragic, and sad.

I cannot understand the decision making behind this though. All the red flags were there, all of them.

- Recent snowfall (10-15% density) the past few days
- Rapid warming day of and skied S aspect
- Prior to storm cold clear nights (became buried surface facets)
- Hellacious winds
- Recent avi activity, remote triggering / propagation

It's easy to say this as hindsight is 20/20 but that day was the first day I skied in a resort in many many weeks for the exact reasons stated above.

I just don't understand. I am saddened to hear this but also saddened that someone would make such a reckless decision.

RIP

real unfortunate to hear. im not a BC guy at all but it seemed scary enough inbounds this week in the cottonwoods with all the road/terrain closures. it seems like the conditions right now are just ripe for disaster.

Right you are, my friend.

On any given day there is acceptable terrain to ski in the BC even in high avi danger. Becoming educated is the first step. Blue bird days give a real sense of false security and the allure of untracked slopes is bait.

My buddy was a responder on this accident and when he told me I was dumbfounded someone had the balls to ski Gobblers on a day like that.

The terrain choice was the blunder here. Some days you get away with it some days you don't. It's never worth death though.

A near miss for a second avy death yesterday. Both under guided trips.

The story I got was that the guide of the slide on Gobbler's told the client to stay immediately in his tracks, and wait until he got into an island of safety before the client dropped.

The client deviated from the original tracks a considerable amount and dropped on top of the guide before he was in his island of safety.

Vibes for a speedy recovery to the guide
RIP Doug.