Game Creek, southwest Tetons, March 17, 2022

The official report on this accident just came out and can be found here: http://https://avalanche.state.co.us...=815&accfm=inv

The Jackson Hole News and Guide did a good story on the accident, which I will insert below and can be found here: https://www.jhnewsandguide.com/news/...s-source=login

It might be behind a paywall, so I will throw it in below.

This is unforgiving terrain that had already slid in the big New Years cycle. Protocols gotta be impeccable in these places, regardless of the danger level.

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Originally Posted by homemadesalsa

The official report on this accident just came out and can be found here: http://https://avalanche.state.co.us...=815&accfm=inv

The Jackson Hole News and Guide did a good story on the accident, which I will insert below and can be found here: https://www.jhnewsandguide.com/news/...s-source=login

It might be behind a paywall, so I will throw it in below.

This is unforgiving terrain that had already slid in the big New Years cycle. Protocols gotta be impeccable in these places, regardless of the danger level.

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Thanks for sharing, I didn’t see that. So sad. The group dynamic in the backcountry is sometimes harder to navigate than the terrain. I’ve done a couple of yurt trips every year for over a decade and even with a solid group, the excitement of the trip is hard to contain. Living and skiing in the Tetons it’s nice having the local snow pack and terrain knowledge that other backcountry visitors don’t typically have. When I travel to yurts out of state I’m always a bit wigged out because I don’t know the history of the snowpack, I hate that feeling. I appreciate their honesty in this article, hopefully we can all learn from such a tragic event.


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Thank you for posting. The "official report" link doesn't seem to work. If you can get a good link, please post. Thanks.

Hmmm try this. If it doesn't work, go to the Accidents tab at avalanche.org


https://avalanche.state.co.us/caic/a...=815&accfm=inv


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Thank you for posting. As a lifelong passionate skier, & educator, Jay would have wanted us to learn from this tragic event.

As an older skier I thought the report was pretty gentle on the pair that was caught--understanding the desire to be kind to the dead and the injured. When people are too exhausted to make it to a safe zone in avy terrain clearly they went way past their limit. We older skiers want to prove to ourselves we can still do it, even when we can't. It's been a long time since I've been able to ski terrain that steep that late in the day competently--since well before I was the age of the skiers in the report, and I work hard to stay in shape--Much harder than I did when I was young with much poorer results. Age does affect us all differently, and certainly some people maintain endurance much longer than others. I don't recall if that's one of the heuristic traps--wishful thinking about one's stamina and ability.