After 19 inches of snow fell on Vail, the Colorado Avalanche Information Center listed Vail's conditions as "considerable." With this amount of foreseen avalanche possibility, staying off the mountain would have been a wise course of action.
Two weeks prior, a skier filmed an avalanche on his GoPro on the same route that claimed Siebert. The skier saw his friend caught in the snow fall and was able to rescue him from danger. The video is incredible and scary.
Lessons learned: Nature is terrifying. We need to respect her forces and not tempt fate. Every month it seems, someone comes up with something new and death defying to attempt. But at what cost? At what point do we say enough is enough? I, like every other adventurer, love the thrill of the unknown and the experience of an adventure that could potentially kill me. But I still don't venture into the woods under a hurricane, or swim during a thunderstorm, or climb a mountain with high lightening warnings. If the condition reports say that something is "considerable" to happen, it's probably smart to listen to them.
The passing of Tony Siebert should serve as a reminder that we need to respect our world and the dangers of exploring it. His death is a tragedy in the legacy of skiing, but we should not forget the lessons learned from it.
Vail Avalanche 12/22/2013
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