Four Mount Charleston skiers swept up by avalanches

Monday, March 1, 2004 | 10:59 a.m.

Four skiers found themselves "swept up in a wave" of two separate avalanches last week near Lee Canyon's Las Vegas Ski and Snowboard Resort, resort officials said.

Three Mount Charleston residents were in the back country just beyond the resort Tuesday at noon when the first avalanche hit, Craig Baldwin, base operations manager for the resort, said.

Two people were swept under the snow, one half-buried with his head out and the other trapped fully beneath, Baldwin said.

The third man, however, stayed above the 200-by-500-foot slide, and was able to dig the others out, Baldwin said.

"It was a pretty scary experience," Baldwin said. "No one was injured luckily."

The fourth man was skiing near Slot Alley at the resort, a side trail designed for expert skiers, when an avalanche hit Wednesday afternoon.

The man soon found himself buried under the snow, one hand sticking out, Baldwin said, but he managed to make an air pocket around his face in order to breathe.

Two snowboarders were able to dig the skier out almost immediately, Baldwin said. The man was shaken up but had no major injuries. Baldwin would not release the names of any of the avalanche victims.

A small natural trigger is believed to have caused the Slot Alley avalanche, Victoria Shaffer, Spring Mountain Recreation Area spokeswoman for the U.S. Forest Service, said.

Resort workers had done avalanche control on the area that morning, Baldwin said, setting off charges in the higher altitudes to keep the snow from building up and causing a slide.

An avalanche near a ski area is "extremely uncommon" because the paths are groomed every day, Baldwin said.

"It's an out-of-the-ordinary circumstance in this area, but Mother Nature is Mother Nature and it can be unpredictable," Baldwin said.

An extreme avalanche warning has been in effect since Tuesday for Kyle and Lee canyons, including the back country areas around Mount Charleston but did not include the Lee Canyon resort.

An extreme avalanche advisory remains in effect for the back country areas today. Baldwin said officials are warning skiers and snowboarders to stay on the set paths.