A beautiful, sunny day on the mountain turned into a mountain rescue emergency Saturday as an avalanche swept up and injured a snowboarder at Eaglecrest Ski Area.
Ski patrollers were able to rescue the 28-year-old male and bring him to the bottom of the mountain at about 12:54 p.m., patrollers report. He was then transported by ambulance to Bartlett Regional Hospital for treatment, Capital City Fire and Rescue chief Ed Quinto said.
“We got a report from a ski patroller who actually witnessed an avalanche occurring out of bounds of the ski area,” Quinto said by phone Saturday. “The person was injured and transported to the hospital.”
The hospital’s Emergency Department was evaluating the skier as of 4 p.m. Saturday, according to Bartlett spokesperson Katie Bausler. At that time, he was reported as in stable condition.
The skier ventured out of bounds alone on a little-used steep slope adjacent to the ski area parking lot when he triggered an avalanche. The slope, informally called “Showboat” as it’s located in full view of a potential audience in the parking lot, is about a 45 minute to an hour and a half hour hike from the bottom of the Hooter chairlift.
Patroller Mattheus Tempel witnessed the avalanche from the chair.
“I was riding up Hooter looking at Showboat and saw that a guy had triggered an avalanche and was taken down out of sight,” Tempel said.
The man was traversing the slope on the way down Showboat when he was caught in the slide.
“He was kind of cutting across and got caught in the avalanche that he triggered,” Tempel said. The man was swept into a gully out of patrollers’ line of sight.
“I just called on the radio to the Eagle’s Nest and they from there had another guy spotting and I was just kind of watching to see if he came out,” Tempel said.
Eaglecrest Director of Snow Safety Brian Davies then dispatched two patrollers to assist the man. Patrollers “hiked up one at a time and traversed over to him, made contact and did a medical assessment,” Davies said.
The man was ambulatory enough to hike out on his own feet. Rescuers escorted him down to CCFR first responders and a waiting ambulance.
Davies stressed that skiing out of bounds can be risky, putting not only skiers at risk, but the rescuers who have to head into avalanche territory to recover them.
“First and foremost he was not in the ski area,” Davies said. “It’s dangerous for everybody and we don’t want to get anyone else hurt or pull resources away from people skiing in bounds.”
Eaglecrest has a checklist on their website detailing what skiers and boarders need to do before heading into the backcountry.
Heading out of bounds is particularly dangerous “given what’s happened in the last three days with avalanches” Davies said. Recent snowfall needs a chance to settle and has led to avalanches on Mount Juneau and in the avalanche corridor out Thane Road in the past week.
The ski area has received six inches of new snow in the last 48 hours.
Eaglecrest does not conduct ski patrol service or avalanche hazard reduction out of bounds in the backcountry. There, skiers are solely responsible for their own safety and Eaglecrest Ski area assumes no responsibility or obligation for performing rescues.
Patrollers sometimes risk backcountry rescue anyway, Davies said, because they are the only ones who are in a position to help.
Ski area boundaries also mark the edge of ski patroller jurisdiction. Terrain out of ski area bounds actually falls under the purview of Alaska State Troopers.
When a person is injured out of bounds, patrollers have to work with state troopers to assess rescue conditions and make the call whether to risk hiking into dangerous territory themselves.
“Basically, we’re working for State Troopers at that point,” Davies said, so even if they want to conduct a rescue, troopers have the final call.
