At the top of the Falcon SuperChair at Breckenridge Ski Resort, foreboding signage with skull and crossbone imagery lies at the edge of the ski area boundary on Peak 10. “Warning,” the signs say in all caps. “You can die.”

This isn’t hyperbole. Just last year in a tragic New Year’s Eve incident a 22-year-old Colorado man died in an avalanche his father triggered after the two exited the ski resort through that very gate.

In the first event in a three-part avalanche talk series, Breckenridge ski patroller and avalanche technician Jeff Hankins recalled responding to that fatal incident last year. Speaking at The Village at Breckenridge on Thursday, Dec. 14, Hankins called attention to the ever-present dangers outside resort boundaries. 

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Breckenridge Ski Resort’s ski patrol team hosted the talk series.

“Sidecountry, or backcountry that is accessed from our resort,” Hankins said. “This has been a longstanding part of our community. It’s been contentious. A lot of people in this room have been affected by this over the years.”

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Because some believe the word ‘sidecountry’ carries a connotation that the areas just outside the ski resort may be safer, Hankins admitted he is “probably going to get a fair amount of grief” for using the term.

But any inkling that the so-called ‘sidecountry’ is safer than the rest of the Colorado backcountry, couldn’t be farther from the truth, he said.

“It is definitely avalanche terrain in Breckenridge,” Hankins said. “It is not patrolled, there are lengthy rescue times and it’s just not safer than the backcountry. It is the backcountry. It’s the same thing.”

“When we have a sign out there that says you can die, we’re not kidding,” he added.

‘There is no ‘safe’ in the backcountry’

When the call came in Dec. 31, 2022 for a skier missing after an avalanche on Peak 10 outside Breckenridge Ski Resort, it was a powder day, Hankins said, and he was skiing inbounds focused on what was happening inside the resort.

The father and son had left through the backcountry access gate at the top of the Falcon SuperChair, where they took an immediate left to an area known locally as The Numbers, he said.

“This is a notorious area that is prime for avalanches,” Hankins said. “It’s in the high 30s in terms of slope angle, very planar slopes, and they’re grassy, nothing to anchor a single kernel. These are slippery slopes, and it’s pretty well known to avoid them.”

The father and son didn’t know much about the backcountry area where they found themselves after leaving the resort and weren’t carrying avalanche transceivers, probes or shovels, Hankins said. It is possible they might have been trying to go to a nearby backcountry known as the Ballroom, which has a reputation for being safer, he said.

The son descended first down the open slope known as Number 5, stopping part way down to watch his father descend, Hankins said. But as the father made his way down, he triggered an avalanche that swept down the slope catching him and his son — who made eye contact as they tumbled — and burying them both over their heads, he said.

The father was able to dig himself out, but it took him about 30 minutes. When he finally freed himself, he couldn’t find any sign of his son, Hankins said. The father didn’t have any cell service to call for help, so he returned to the resort and reported the incident to a rookie patroller, who had just started, he said.

Soon, Breckenridge ski patrol had received permission from the Summit County Sheriff’s Office to respond to the incident outside ski resort boundaries, and Hankins was on the Falcon SuperChair with the father who just lost his son.

As ski patrollers and other rescue personnel searched for the exact location of the scene, they triggered a second avalanche at Number 4, Hankins said. Luckily nobody was caught or buried in the slide.

“It is often repeated that when you go out into the backcountry, you don’t just put yourself at risk, you put rescuers at risk,” Hankins said. “We had a near miss on this one. .… That avalanche was larger than the one that took a life.”

Looking back at historic documents, Hankins discovered an avalanche public awareness talk 15 years ago had specifically identified the Numbers as a hazardous area. He also found an old photo of an avalanche at Number 5 that broke almost identically to the fatal one last Dec. 31.

“The degree is in exactly the same spot. The crown is the same way,” Hankins said. “This is a repeat offender. Don’t go there.”

While the area nearby known as the Ballroom may have a reputation for being safer, Hankins noted that even in that low-angle terrain, it is possible at times to trigger an avalanche. He displayed a photo of a large avalanche “right where everyone goes” at the Ballroom.

Hankins also briefly mentioned other backcountry areas just outside the ski resort, like Fourth of July Bowl, which he described as “generally pretty comfortable.” But this area has also seen avalanches in the past that could have been deadly if someone had been caught in them, he said.

“There is no safe in the backcountry,” Hankins said. “And this particular backcountry we have is some of the most dangerous in the world.”

‘People are drawn to the mountains’

In February 1987, a large avalanche on Peak 7 set the stage for the decades-long debate over ski area boundaries and access to the so-called “sidecountry” and backcountry, Hankins said. The avalanche killed four young men.

Peak 7 was then just outside Breckenridge Ski Resort, and hundreds of skiers had been flowing through the backcountry access point against the advice of ski patrollers before the avalanche, Hankins said.

He noted that the historic slide “affected everyone in this community.”

For a while after the Peak 7 avalanche, Breckenridge Ski Resort closed its backcountry access gates that were at high elevations so that people would “have to put in the effort to go up high,” Hankins said.

But eventually that changed. The ski resort now has two backcountry access gates up high, including the one at the Falcon SuperChair, and the law requires that they must remain open, he said.

“The public and the National Forest Service has made a concrete statement that they are not going to block access to public lands,” Hankins said. “So all of our (backcountry access) gates have to stay open and will remain open.”

Colorado Avalanche Information Center forecaster Andrew McWilliams, who also spoke Thursday night, noted that avalanches have killed more people in the state than any other natural hazard. Colorado reportedly accounts for about one-third of all avalanche deaths in the United States.

McWilliams notes that as soon as someone leaves the ski resort through a backcountry access gate, they are in the backcountry. There is no avalanche mitigation going on beyond the ski resort boundaries, he said.

In Colorado, the thin coverage results in a lot of faceted snow that creates weak layers in the snowpack and means that throughout most of the winter season the state is dealing with persistent slab avalanches, McWilliams said.

In general, it is safest to stick to slopes below 30 degrees as avalanches tend to occur on slopes between 30 and 50 degrees, McWilliams said. He noted that even experts have a hard time estimating the degree of a slope by eye, so he recommended using a Smartphone app like CalTopo to learn about the geography of an area.

The backcountry access gate at the top of Peak 10 includes a “backcountry checklist” outlining the essentials of backcountry travel. Hankins said that if the father and son had followed these guidelines, the son may still be alive today.

Backcountry skiers should check the Colorado Avalanche Information Center before leaving, travel with a partner, have knowledge of the terrain and route ahead of time, have a rescue plan and tell someone where they are going, he said. Anyone heading into the backcountry should also carry a shovel, probe and avalanche transceiver and know how to use that equipment.

McWilliams also noted that when skiing in the backcountry, skiers should descend a slope one at a time, the next person only starting their descent after the person ahead of them has reached a safe spot out of the way of any potential avalanche that could be triggered.

Noting the dangers of the Colorado backcountry, McWilliams said that it is nonetheless an exciting place where everyone has to choose for themselves how much risk they’re willing to take on. He pointed to a quote from a Colorado Avalanche Information Center report written in the aftermath of an avalanche that killed a solo backcountry skier last year.

“People are drawn to the mountains by their beauty and by the opportunity for adventure,” McWilliams said. “We each choose how we want to face the challenges they offer and decide what is an acceptable risk for ourselves.”