No casualties reported in ski run avalanche
MAMMOTH LAKES, Calif. – An avalanche struck a Mammoth Mountain ski run Monday, but no one was found in the snow after hours of searching and no one was reported missing, a resort spokeswoman said.
Hundreds of searchers worked across the avalanche area using poles to probe the snow every six inches, and with no missing person reports, the situation was to be re-evaluated following a sweep with avalanche dogs, said Joani Lynch, spokeswoman for the popular Mammoth Mountain Ski Area.
“We fielded a number of calls from concerned individuals looking for people and it turns out that the individuals who were not accounted for were helping with the search,” Lynch said.
Lynch said the slide, while fairly wide, occurred only in the area of a run called Climax.
Climax is near the top of the 11,053-foot mountain, which has had record snowfall this season.
The Eastern Sierra Avalanche Center had posted a warning of “considerable” danger for Monday.
The mountain’s ski patrol had triggered controlled slides earlier, and had blasted the Climax area, too, Lynch said. She did not know if that work had actually caused any snow to slide in Climax area.
The avalanche hit shortly after 2 p.m., said Fire Chief Brent Harper.
Three or four minor injuries were initially reported by fire dispatch, but no one was taken to the local hospital, Harper said. Lynch said the ski area had no reports of injuries related to the incident.
Skier Katie Bloom, 26, said she saw the aftermath of the avalanche as she rode a gondola up the mountain.
“It was huge,” said Bloom, a teacher. “You could see some people in snow up to their knees. I saw some patrollers digging. I couldn’t tell if they were using a shovel or their hands. Everyone was screaming, ‘Oh, no, not again.’ “
The avalanche followed an April 6 tragedy when three members of Mammoth’s ski patrol were asphyxiated by gas from a volcanic vent on the mountain. One of the three was the resort’s avalanche expert.
The Mammoth Web site reported the resort closed operations for the day at 2:30 p.m. It also said 11 inches of snow had fallen in the 24 hours preceding 6 a.m. and the base depth was 18 feet to 20 feet.
The resort has had more than 52 feet of total snowfall since October.
Mammoth, 195 miles east of San Francisco, is popular with skiers and snowboarders from Southern California. It has 3,500 skiable acres, 150 trails and 28 lifts.
The Eastern Sierra Avalanche Center had warned that there was considerable danger of both natural and manmade avalanches in the Mammoth Basin.
“Natural avalanches are possible and you will probably trigger a slab avalanche if you get into steep northwest to southeast facing terrain especially above treeline,” the warning said.
A slab avalanche sets loose an entire slope.
The April 6 deaths occurred as a ski patrol team was raising a fence around a well-known hazard, a vent that spews volcanic gases. Thick snow collapsed and two members of the patrol fell in. A third member, Charles Walter Rosenthal, was overcome and died after entering the hole in a rescue attempt.
Rosenthal, a research scientist, was the ski patrol’s snow and avalanche analyst, and was president of the Eastern Sierra Avalanche Center, which he had helped found.