“It’s probably the hardest thing to do - but you need to relax and be patient. Once you go head-first into a tree well, it’s the decisions you make in literally a matter of seconds that could help save your life. He recommends skiers always travel with an avalanche transceiver, shovel, and a tracker device called the RECCO Rescue System. It’s the easiest way to alert your friends to your location,” Atkins explained, putting the whistle to his mouth. “So when you’re upside down, you can just push it up into your mouth and whistle. Otherwise, you’re functionally alone,” said Atkins.Ītkins recommends skiing with a whistle that attaches to your collar and can be used hands-free.
And by close by - when you’re skiing in the trees - you need to be literally be just a few turns away. “To be found, it actually takes friends close by.
We stress it over and over and over again,” said Byrd. “Being directly in the line of sight of your buddies is absolutely critical. Statistics show that nine out of 10 experienced skiers who go into a tree well, head-first, can’t get out on their own. The odds are against you if you don’t have someone nearby to help. He took off his snowboard and was walking along the tree line, looking for easier terrain, when he fell in.
Salviano says his brother had accidentally gotten on a run that he deemed was too difficult. But those tree wells are so deep and so hidden, that you could ski right by it and not even know,” said Salviano. There were people that were going by that area. “He wasn’t missing in an area that no one knew. “It hits us every single day,” said Austin Salviano, whose brother, 25-year-old Logan Salviano, died in a tree well on Vail Mountain in 2016. But it does happen and it’s increasingly happening at ski areas across the West and in Colorado,” he said. But when they do happen - particularly in something at the base of a tree or in 3 feet of uncompacted snow - it’s still pretty shocking to people that that could lead to a fatality. It’s a relatively low figure compared to other outdoor-related fatalities in Colorado.īyrd pointed out there were more whitewater rafting deaths in Colorado in 2019 alone than there were tree well deaths in a 20-year span. “You can suffocate within a minute or three minutes,” said Byrd, when asked how long someone could survive upside down in a tree well.īyrd says since 2001, there have been 13 tree well and deep snow immersion deaths in Colorado. So our tree wells, that today are just beginning, they’re going to become cavernous,” Atkins said. “When we get into late winter and early spring, our snowpack is going to be twice as deep - in some places, three times as deep. Atkins says that’s likely to drastically change in the next couple of months. You just keep sinking down into it,” said Atkins.Ĭurrently, snowpack isn’t very deep. And when you sink into this, there’s really no way to get support to be able to push yourself up. “Some of it is the gear has become so advanced - just in the last 10-15 years - that even intermediate skiers nowadays can access parts of a mountain or ski area that they weren’t previously able to do,” said Dave Byrd, who is the director of risk and regulatory affairs for the National Ski Areas Association.įOX31 ventured out into the Loveland Pass area in late January to check out conditions with Atkins, who has been with the Alpine Rescue Team for more than 45 years.Ītkins says tree wells are most dangerous during and after big storms, when the branches and brush keep the snow from falling at the base of the trunk, and compacting - creating a sort of “winter quicksand” for anyone who falls into one. 2 deadliest state for tree well and deep snow immersion. 1 ski and snowboard destination in the country. “And from that point, there’s really no escape unless your friends are nearby.”Ĭolorado is the No. “Once you’re down inside one of these tree wells and knocking snow on top of you, you end up burying yourself,” said Dale Atkins with Alpine Rescue Team. They’ve been referred to as “winter quicksand,” but many people don’t know how dangerous tree wells are until they’re stuck in one. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated. This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated.
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