4 snowboarders and 1 skier killed in Colorado avalanche
This weekend has been a deadly one in the Colorado backcountry near Loveland Ski Resort as four snowboarders and one skier were killed in a single slide with another person surviving.
This is the state's deadliest avalanche in more than 50 years. In 1962 seven people were killed in a slide that took out several homes in the town of Twin Lakes near Independence Pass.
Saturdays avalanche was in the generally north-facing Sheep Creek drainage, which runs down into the Loveland Basin Ski area.
The avalanche occurred at about 1 p.m. on Saturday April 20th and came after heavy spring snows fell across the area the past few weeks, creating a high avalanche danger in the area.
Close to four feet of snow has fallen during the past week along with moderate to strong winds which have created deep slabs. This slide apparently broke loose on a burried weak layer about 4 feet deep. The slide fracture was about 400 to 500 feet wide, according to Colorado Avalanche Information Center.
These deaths bring the total number of slide-related fatalities in Colorado during the current ski season to ten.
For a better sense of the area have a look at this related post on ski touring in the area and for more information on skiing in Colorado, that can be found over here.
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UPDATE:
The Colorado Avalanche Information Center has now released their full report on the incident and it cvan be found here.
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Below are a selection of photos and maps from our ski tours at Loveland Pass back in February of this year. At that time we found a heavy sun crust over lying a 36″ base made up mostly of facets and rotten depth hoar snow. Not great skiing and not stable snow conditions.