So what happened at Killington with those lost skiers?

[marzNC]

Given that there were multiple groups, it's not clear to me who the 5 year olds were with, meaning the Killington instructor or another group.

In any case, anyone without gear for backcountry skiing in New England had no business ducking a rope in that sort of weather conditions.

 

[Jenny]

Given that there were multiple groups, it's not clear to me who the 5 year olds were with, meaning the Killington instructor or another group.

In any case, anyone without gear for backcountry skiing in New England had no business ducking a rope in that sort of weather conditions.

Or no business ducking a rope at all. Aren’t there official ways/places you should be entering the backcountry?

 

[floatingyardsale]

The skiers are saying they didn't duck ropes.

 

[TiffAlt]

The skiers are saying they didn't duck ropes.

So the resort says they ducked ropes and they are saying there were no ropes. Oh man...

 

[skibum4ever]

Stranger and stranger...

 

[marzNC]

There is info in the article about the ski instructor. The new information is based on the interview with a man who also provided a couple pictures taken during the rescue. A picture includes one of the children. Another person interviewed was a member of Rescue Inc., who happened to be close by when the emergency call went out after 911 was called. He was the first to reach the combined group of lost people.

February 5, 2024

More than 20 skiers had to be rescued from the Killington, Vt., backcountry. But how did they all get lost?

Christopher Campanella set out for the slopes early that Saturday morning, ready for a day of snowboarding at Killington Ski Resort.

www.boston.com

"
Christopher Campanella set out for the slopes early that Saturday morning, ready for a day of snowboarding at Killington Ski Resort.

A big group of friends had driven all the way from Buffalo to the sprawling Vermont resort, where dozens of steep mountain runs beckoned.

But by about 2 p.m. on Jan. 20, Campanella and two of his buddies realized they were lost, a wrong turn sending them into the unmarked Vermont backcountry. With temperatures hovering in the single digits, they needed to find their way back, and quickly.

As they walked through the wooded area crisscrossed with skiers’ trails, the trio soon realized they weren’t the only people lost on the mountain. First they ran into a couple, then a larger group, then others who had also wandered off the marked trails at the 1,500-acre resort. The group included a half-dozen members of a high school ski club and one of the resort’s ski instructors, who was with two students, both about 5 years old.
. . .

But Campanella said none of the skiers or snowboarders he spoke with left the property on purpose.

“They make it seem like we intentionally ducked some ropes and ignored some signs, and they say that we came down from the Snowshed peak, but that’s not at all what happened with us, at least,” he said. “I can’t speak for everyone, but for us, I never saw signs, never saw a rope or anything.”
. . .

Campanella said he was surprised to see that the ski instructor, who told Campanella she had worked for the resort for six years, was also lost.

“I was a little confused, but it kind of made me feel like it must not be that hard to end up on the wrong side and accidentally go down somewhere you’re not supposed to, because she didn’t intend to, and I don’t think she was purposely ducking ropes and not listening to signs,” Campanella said.
. . ."

 

[Iwannaski]

To be honest, that makes a lot more sense, because, again, WHO WOULD TAKE 5 YEAR OLDS INTO THE BACKCOUNTRY IN THOSE CONDITIONS?

 

[MissySki]

Yikes, if that’s the case this is all even more awful. Especially that the person lost their job and housing over it.

 

[snoWYmonkey]

Will we ever find out what happened. If not intentional, then a major mistake, but who made it? It does seem like a fairly large number of unrelated parties at the same time. Hard to know without knowing the people if they were the type to break the rules or not, but the number of kids and lack of gear makes me think it maybe was a mistake after all.

I wonder if the instructor's lawyer has gagged all media talk at this point. I bet there is a pending lawsuit or two if there really was not rope marking the ski area boundary. Those ropes are pretty key and especially if it is an area that is easy to get lost in one would assume the ropes are usually up, but who knows....

I am so relieved no one died or was maimed, and hopefully all resorts learn from this incident, and if an error was made, I hope the resort owns up to it.

 

[marzNC]

I wonder if the instructor's lawyer has gagged all media talk at this point. I bet there is a pending lawsuit or two if there really was not rope marking the ski area boundary. Those ropes are pretty key and especially if it is an area that is easy to get lost in one would assume the ropes are usually up, but who knows....

Here's something I noticed in the Boston Globe article. Coppock was the man who first met up with lost skiers. He's part of Rescue Inc. and has skied K'ton since 1987. He and his wife move to Vermont from Montana. He was a backcountry skier in Montana.

" . . .
Coppock said it is “unprecedented to rescue that many people at one time,” but skiers leave the designated area at Killington “all the time,” leading to many rescues, and many others who find their way out with help from the ski patrol or on their own.

“It looks like part of the ski area; it looks like they’re just going off the trail,” he said. “They see tracks . . . they think that, ‘OK, I’ll ski into the woods, but I know that if there’s tracks back there, it must mean that it’s going to lead me to the bottom of another chair lift.’”

Coppock said its nearly impossible for the resort to keep all ski areas clearly marked because wind, snow, and wildlife will knock lines over or cover them up.

“I absolutely don’t blame the resort on this,” he said.
. . ."

More about Rescue Inc. involvement in this article.

January 31, 2024

Rescue Inc.'s new North Team leads Killington rescue

A recently formed partnership between Southern Vermont's non-profit ambulance service and disaffected members of a Central Vermont search and rescue squad was crucial in rescuing nearly two dozen skiers and snowboarders who wandered off the main trails at Killington and found themselves on the...

www.benningtonbanner.com

 

[Christy]

Does it really matter if they ducked a rope vs just not knowing where they were going? Maybe from a philosophical standpoint knowingly breaking a rule is worse than ignorance, but either can get you killed. Ski resorts aren't perfectly lined with barriers and signs marking the boundary. If you go off piste you have to know where you are going, you have to know conditions, avy danger, how to get back to a lift...I see tracks leading to who knows where all the time but I don't assume they lead to a place that's in bounds, safe, etc. There are way too many places where people ski that dump you out on a highway then you have to hitch back or take a loooong walk back. There's a 6 mile long "no hitchhiking" zone near Stevens Pass now because it was common for people to ski OOB then walk along the highway waiting for a ride, and created a real hazard for plow drivers.

To me this is still very newsworthy as a cautionary tale.

If there is something super confusing about Killington where its really hard to know if you are in bounds or not, the instructors could carry an InReach or similar.

 

[MissySki]

Does it really matter if they ducked a rope vs just not knowing where they were going? Maybe from a philosophical standpoint knowingly breaking a rule is worse than ignorance, but either can get you killed. Ski resorts aren't perfectly lined with barriers and signs marking the boundary. If you go off piste you have to know where you are going, you have to know conditions, avy danger, how to get back to a lift...I see tracks leading to who knows where all the time but I don't assume they lead to a place that's in bounds, safe, etc. There are way too many places where people ski that dump you out on a highway then you have to hitch back or take a loooong walk back. There's a 6 mile long "no hitchhiking" zone near Stevens Pass now because it was common for people to ski OOB then walk along the highway waiting for a ride, and created a real hazard for plow drivers.

To me this is still very newsworthy as a cautionary tale.

If there is something super confusing about Killington where its really hard to know if you are in bounds or not, the instructors could carry an InReach or similar.

I think people are more blasé about this stuff in the East.. the mountains are much smaller, there are way fewer areas with avy danger and tree wells, you don’t often end up anywhere that would require hiking or cars to get out of. Not that this excuse’s especially an instructor not knowing exactly where they are leading kids. I just find it a bit fishy still though.. like if I don’t know where I’m going at a resort or wasn’t with someone who did, I wouldn’t just head into the unknown either. This is likely still a case of seeing tracks and following them, which is stupid for anyone to do when they don’t know where they lead. The instructor though, I still can’t quite wrap my head around that.

 

[NewEnglandSkier]

The whole thing just seems so odd---for that many people to end up out of bounds in the same place at the same time frame. It's weird. Especially the instructor with the 5 year olds--I thought it said she had taught there for 6 seasons---it's hard to believe she didn't realize she was going out of bounds. Very strange--not sure what to think about it.

 

[TiffAlt]

Agree with all the other posters that something isn't adding up right. I just don't think anyone would knowingly take their young kids out into danger like that, though I do agree with @Christy as well that this is a cautionary tale no matter how you cut it.

This hits home, because I myself once followed what I thought was the ski school onto a trail in anticipation of following their turns as I'm still learning. It took me off trail and also into the woods and I was lucky that I wasn't too far to back out and find my way back to the marked trail!

 

[Skivt2]

It’s normal to ski in the woods at Killington and at Pico. There are lots of unmarked and marked woods to ski. And because Killington is really a bunch of small peaks clustered together there are lots of gully’s and valleys in between. There are lots of beginner connecting trails and it can seem like you should be able to just cut through the woods and get from one place to another. But the terrain in the woods often has fall lines that are not what you would expect. It can seem like you are in a spot uphill from another trail and the fall line seems to go towards that other trail at first. If you see tracks it often serves to confirm your thoughts about being able to go from here to there via a little pice of woods. But sometimes one you start downhill the fall line will tilt away from what you expect and you can end up out of bounds unintentionally. The area straight off Snowden and skiers left off of the Northridge area is deceiving. Knowing Pico is west and so is the interconnect trail it’s easy to think it’s not a risky endeavor. But unfortunately the way the drainage is that path actually goes around behind Pico into a drainage that funnels into one “ravine”. So people can leave various Trails in several places and wind up in that ravine. Unfortunately at the bottom of that ravine it flattens out a lot for a long way and ends up on a dirt road with very little civilization for miles in either direction. The few houses back there are off the grid. So the funnel effect is why there were so many people in the same spot. The mountain does have warning signs that tell you there is a boundary and not to go past but the area of possible entry points are too vast to rope or effectively mark.

 

[brooksnow]

The mountain does have warning signs that tell you there is a boundary and not to go past but the area of possible entry points are too vast to rope or effectively mark.

I wonder if this incident will lead Killington to rope off the entire boundary.

Sugarloaf has a rope (in places multiple ropes) around the entire ski area. I know nothing official, but the ropes appeared after someone went out of bounds in a well marked area and claimed he "didn't see any signs." Going out of bounds can lead down to very remote areas.

 

[VTsnowflower]

A bit of hearsay from the locker room…that the skiers contesting having their passes pulled say that the place they went into the woods had been groomed, apparently by a snow cat that had parked there, so it looked like a bona fide trail to start. (Don’t know how true this is, but it was being discussed.)

 

[11694s]

It's been quite a long time since I've skied Killington, but it certainly seems like a place where the signage should be very explicit. How do you even get out of there without needing to be rescued? It seems like the only place you could end up is a trailhead, which *maybe* has cars at it in the wintertime? Do locals who ski this sidecountry stash a car there?

Not that that excuses the rope ducking, but I do find it surprising that Killington doesn't have some signage up there making it clear that there's no way back to the resort, especially since it sounds like this is a recurring issue.

View attachment 22326View attachment 22327

I believe they came off the North RIdge quad, went to Cooper's Cabin and continued on down, which feeds you into nowhere land and you come out on Wheelerville Rd.

 

[MaineSkiLady]

Sugarloaf has a rope (in places multiple ropes) around the entire ski area. I know nothing official, but the ropes appeared after someone went out of bounds in a well marked area and claimed he "didn't see any signs." Going out of bounds can lead down to very remote areas.

If this was in early March, 2013, I was there that day when a rescue happened early that morning. Snowmobile picked up the lost person (lost overnight!) on a snowmobile trail. It was tense.

Anyone who thinks one can’t get lost in eastern ski resorts has never been into Brackett Basin at Sugarloaf (and accompanying Burnt Mountain and Androscoggin glade, total of about 600 acres). This whole region is wildly disorienting. We have much video footage of this region, yikes.

One time DH missed not only the western turn to King Pine, he also missed the Whiffletree turn (gets flat!), went all the way down to the log yard and into a subdivision. A shuttle bus driver stopped when he was skating down the street and asked if he wanted a ride “back up” (!) to the base. (Pictures of this silly mistake exist somewhere...) Yes, possible to get lost in the east, especially in Brackett Basin at Sugarloaf.