An avalanche struck outside Kicking Horse Mountain Resort’s boundaries this afternoon and left three individuals with minor injuries.
At 3:00pm, Kicking Horse Mountain Safety Dispatch received a call for an avalanche and potential missing persons outside the ski area boundary, located south of the resort. The resort’s Mountain Safety personnel immediately started an investigation and activated their avalanche rescue plan.
After confirming avalanche debris outside of the ski area boundary, RCMP and other outside agencies were activated.
By 3:26pm, all three missing persons were accounted for and airlifted offsite for minor injuries, completing the rescue operation.
“The Kicking Horse Mountain Safety Team, Golden and District Search and Rescue and all personnel involved did an outstanding job today, with minimal effect to normal operation” said Mike Rubenstein, Director of Mountain Operations.
All three men are their early 20s, all from Saskatchewan. They were apparently skiing out-of-bounds near Terminator 2 when they allegedly caused and were subsequently caught in the avalanche. One of the men was able to call 911 and the Safety Team from the Kicking Horse Mountain Resort was able to quickly locate them. Two of the men have suffered serious but non-life threatening injuries while the third is apparently uninjured.