{"id":459943,"date":"2026-02-16T17:17:33","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T17:17:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/459943\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T17:17:33","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T17:17:33","slug":"colorado-avalanche-partially-buries-skier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/459943\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado Avalanche Partially Buries Skier"},"content":{"rendered":"

Marks first of season in state<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The slide occurred on a 38-degree slope on Bald Mountain’s east side, near the town of Breckenridge. “This was an usually large avalanche for this time of year,” said CAIC forecaster Scott Toepfer, who visited the debris field the next day.<\/p>\n

Published November 24, 2015 12:00AM<\/p>\n

Colorado\u2019s first serious avalanche accident of the season took place in Summit County on Saturday, according to the Colorado Avalanche Information Center<\/a>\u00a0(CAIC). Summit County Rescue Group, assisted by a\u00a0helicopter from national emergency rescue\u00a0group Flight for Life, evacuated a skier\u00a0partially buried on the east side of Bald Mountain, near the town of Breckenridge, according to Summit Daily News<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The man was skiing alone on a northeast-facing slope,\u00a0at an angle of about 38 degrees, that had received 20 inches of snow from the week\u2019s storm. After the slide, he found a bar of cellphone\u00a0service and made multiple calls to 911. At 2 p.m. local time, he reached a dispatcher\u00a0to report that he was injured, according to CAIC\u00a0forecaster Scott Toepfer, who has\u00a030 years of avalanche forecasting experience.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The man was rescued at 4:30 p.m. MST. His injuries were not life\u00a0threatening, but he was at risk for hypothermia.<\/p>\n

Two additional avalanches were reported in Summit County on Sunday.\u00a0One was located near Arapahoe Basin, but not within the ski area\u2019s boundaries, and the other was near the top of Loveland Pass. No burials were reported.<\/p>\n

\u201cBoth my boss, who was with me, and I kept saying, \u2018I can\u2019t believe how big this avalanche is on November 21,\u2019\u201d said Toepfer, who visited the slide area the next day. \u201cThis was an unusually\u00a0large avalanche for this time of year. And\u00a0as much as I love avalanches, that makes me very anxious.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Marks first of season in state The slide occurred on a 38-degree slope on Bald Mountain’s east side,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":459944,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5116],"tags":[193,192,144,5277,5,4,51334,55808,55809,51337,55807,55806,51341],"class_list":{"0":"post-459943","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-colorado-avalanche","8":"tag-avalanche","9":"tag-colorado","10":"tag-colorado-avalanche","11":"tag-coloradoavalanche","12":"tag-hockey","13":"tag-nhl","14":"tag-parent_category-adventure","15":"tag-tag-arapahoe-basin","16":"tag-tag-breckenridge-ski-resort","17":"tag-tag-news","18":"tag-tag-newsletter-suppress","19":"tag-tag-outdoor-adventure","20":"tag-type-article"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116081449377088172","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=459943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459943\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/459944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=459943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=459943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=459943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}