Avalanche — Southwestern San Juan Mountains, Colorado

2025-02-20 · Southwestern San Juan Mountains, Colorado

Event narrative

The Colorado Avalanche Information Center (CAIC) rated the avalanche danger at this location on the day of the incident as Moderate (2/5), with persistent slab avalanches being the main concern. The likelihood of an avalanche was rated as Possible and the expected size was Small to Large (up to D2), large enough to injure, bury, or kill. The period from late November to early February was generally dry, leading to a weak, low cohesion snowpack onto which 3-4 feet of fresh snow fell from February 14th to the 19th. The incident party was made up of 2 experienced backcountry tourers. Rider 2 was very familiar with the terrain in the area, while this was Skier 1's first time in this area. They had toured together multiple times in other locations prior to this trip. Both read the avalanche forecast on the morning of the incident, and had made a plan to ski lower angle terrain to start, to test the snowpack for any signs of instability. Both had transceivers and carried avalanche probes and shovels. The incident party made for the steeper terrain of a feature known as The Nose in the afternoon. Skier 1 started his descent and within 5-10 second triggered an avalanche that caught him, but he was able to escape the avalanche 150-200 vertical feet below his starting point. Once out of the avalanche he looked and called for Rider 2 and received no response. Skier 1 began a transceiver search and, after about an hour of searching the widely spread out avalanche debris, finally located Rider 2, buried under about 6 feet of snow. An additional pair of rescuers had noticed the fresh avalanche and arrived in the area, searching on their own before finding Skier 1 and helping dig out Rider 2. When found, Rider 2 was not breathing and had no pulse. Rider 2 was finally fully excavated about 90 minutes after the avalanche, and while Silverton Medical Rescue arrived and provided care, even airlifting them to the hospital in Silverton, Rider 2 was pronounced dead.

Wider weather episode

After a prolonged winter storm from February 14th to the 19th dumped 3-4 feet of snow on the San Juan Mountains, the snow pack in the region was somewhat unstable. The Colorado Avalanche Information Center rated the avalanche danger on February 20th in the area east of Ophir, CO as Moderate or 2/5, and listed the probability of avalanches as possible, with a size of D2, or Small to Large. On this date, in an area known locally as The Nose, two backcountry tourers triggered an avalanche rated as D2.5, big enough to bury, injure, or kill a person, that caught both and buried and killed one.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1239173. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.