The first big snowfalls of winter bring a lot of excitement to Colorado’s backcountry communities — and a heavy responsibility to those whose job it is to keep people safe from avalanches.
Avalanches kill more people in Colorado than in any other state, an average of six annually. Last winter, the death toll was three. But Ethan Greene, director of the state-run Colorado Avalanche Information Center, stressed that there were also several close calls that could have easily turned fatal.
“The difference between having a scary experience in an avalanche and having a really bad outcome, serious injury or death, sometimes can be pretty small margins,” said Greene.
That’s why it’s so important to be prepared, not just with safety tools but the understanding of how to use them. Greene recommends every backcountry user carry at least an avalanche beacon, which transmits someone’s location from under the snow, a shovel and a probe — basically a long, foldable pole used to poke into the snow to help find someone.
It’s also vital to check the avalanche forecast, Greene said. His agency releases it daily.
Avalanche safety courses are becoming much more popular, with Greene’s organization recently helping launch a new online program, with classes for both snowmobilers and non-motorized backcountry users, including skiers, hikers and snowshoers.
In the small town of Minturn, the White River National Forest manages a free avalanche beacon training park, where people can practice locating buried beacons and employing their life-saving skills. Several ski areas operate their own beacon parks.
Greene thinks people are starting to understand a simple, undeniable rule of the mountains: “If you have snow on a slope that's over 30 degrees, there's a potential for an avalanche.”
He believes all of these resources and trends combined have kept Colorado’s average number of avalanche deaths from rising in recent years, even as the number of people exploring the backcountry has exploded. This is good news, “but when your loved one gets killed, it's hard to take much solace in that broad trend,” Greene said.
Several deaths in recent winters have shone a spotlight on the dangers of avalanches, including a 2021 slide near Silverton that killed three men, all well-known in Eagle County. The following year, the son of Northern Colorado University’s president died in an avalanche just outside the boundaries of Breckenridge Ski Resort.
Despite all the avalanche education, awareness and safety gear, Colorado’s mountains are still likely to see tragedy again this winter. The last time the state had zero avalanche deaths was more than 50 years ago, in the winter of 1968-1969.
Greene’s agency investigates every single deadly avalanche in Colorado. They talk to witnesses and family, and try to understand what went wrong. Sometimes it turns out that someone went out alone or didn’t know how to use their safety equipment. Often, they didn’t recognize the danger because they’d been to the same spot in the mountains before without incident.
Unlike other natural disasters, like a flood or earthquake, avalanches are often triggered within a moment by human activity. A slope might be dangerous, but may look completely still and serene until “we tip the scales and we release that natural hazard,” Greene said.
Avalanche conditions are never static. An area that might be safe one day could be deadly the next. It’s something Greene’s team takes into account every time they venture into the backcountry, which they regularly do, for work and for fun. They all love the mountains, Greene said, and they’re happy others do, too. But they want people to remember to match their plans for the day with the avalanche conditions of the day.
He would love for this winter to be the first in generations without an avalanche fatality in the state.
“We really don't want to scare people unnecessarily, and we want people to go out and have a good time and enjoy the Colorado backcountry,” Greene said, “but we also want them to do it safely.”
