At least 13 people died after crashes or heart attacks on Colorado’s ski slopes in the 2024-25 season with at least 10 of the deaths occurring on intermediate or beginner runs. That is a decline from annual fatalities in recent seasons.
The Colorado Sun surveys 16 county coroners for deaths recorded at the state’s 27 operating ski areas. Of the three women and 10 men who died following an accident or medical event at Colorado ski areas in the 2024-25 season, eight were skiers and five were snowboarders, with ages ranging from 20 to 76. Five of the deaths were recorded days or even weeks after an accident at a ski area. Two skiers died from heart attacks, one suffocated in deep snow and 10 suffered trauma following a fall.
Colorado ski areas do not report deaths. Resort representatives issue brief statements and condolences when asked by reporters about fatal accidents. Resorts do not consider medical events — like heart attacks — a ski area fatality even if the death occurred on the slopes.
The National Ski Areas Association, a trade group representing 480 operating ski areas in the U.S., reports annual deaths at U.S. ski areas “resulting from sport-related trauma.” In the 2023-24 ski season, the association reported 35 deaths, which was below the 10-year average of 42 deaths. Of those 35 deaths, 28 were skiers and seven were snowboarders and a majority of them were riding intermediate slopes when they suffered fatal injuries. Only five of those 35 killed on U.S. slopes in the 2023-24 season were not wearing helmets.
The death rate per million skier visits reached a 10-year low of 0.58 in the 2023-24 season. Colorado’s death rate is significantly higher than the national average, with about one fatality for every million visits. Last year, when the state’s ski area reported 14 million skier visits, there were at least 15 deaths on Colorado ski slopes, close to double the national average in 2023-24. But again, those 15 deaths in Colorado in 2023-24 included six medical events that the industry does not consider when tallying fatalities.
Colorado coroners reported at least 15 deaths in 2023-24 and at least 17 deaths at ski resorts in the 2022-23 ski season, more than in previous seasons but less than the historic high of 22 fatalities set in the low-snow season of 2011-12. Resorts also do not discuss or report nonfatal injuries at ski areas, even though resort community emergency rooms treat thousands of injured skiers and snowboarders every season.
An injured skier is strapped into a toboggan stretcher before being transported down Vail ski area by the ski patrol, March 26, 2024, in Vail. (Hugh Carey, The Colorado Sun)The ski resort industry’s safety strategies are anchored in personal responsibility more than transparency. The Skier’s Responsibility Code was overhauled in 2022 and outlines what rules skiers must follow on lift-served terrain. Recent industrywide safety campaigns include a focus on safety while riding lifts, skiing in terrain parks and avoiding suffocation hazards in deep, loose snow around the bases of trees.
A more recent education campaign — called Ride Another Day — focuses on avoiding collisions with harrowing details of the death of 5-year-old Elise Johnson, who was killed by an out-of-control snowboarder at a community ski area in Wyoming on Christmas Eve 2010. Elise’s parents have spent 15 years sharing the devastating consequences of reckless riding and urging all resort visitors to control their speed and give other skiers space.
Here’s a list of ski area deaths reported by Colorado coroners since November 2024.
Dec. 24 — Skier Lynn Ban, a renowned 52-year-old jewelry designer from New York, fell on Aspen Mountain. She was wearing a helmet and suffered a head injury that required emergency surgery several days later. She died three weeks after the surgery.
Dec. 24 — Skier Jessie Mello, a 24-year-old Marine from Grand Junction, fell on an intermediate run and collided with a tree at Powderhorn. She was wearing a helmet and died from her injuries at a Grand Junction hospital on Jan. 5.
Jan. 8 — Snowboarder Brandon Durham, 21, of Boulder, crashed on Andy’s Encore, an intermediate run at Copper Mountain. He was not helmeted and died of complications from multiple blunt force injuries on Jan. 14.
Jan. 12 — Snowboarder Nadia Hi, 28, of Aurora, fell on Keystone’s intermediate Flying Dutchman ski run. She was wearing a helmet and died Jan. 20 due to complications from blunt force trauma.
Jan. 17 — Skier Timothy Kelch, 69, of Cincinnati, Ohio, collapsed on a beginner run at Keystone ski area from a heart attack.
Jan. 26 — Snowboarder Jacob Arellano, 41, of Lakewood, was found submerged in snow in an island of trees off an intermediate run at Winter Park’s Mary Jane area. He was wearing a helmet.
Feb. 2 — Skier Peter Hazard, a 60-year-old Telluride resident, collapsed on an expert run and stopped breathing. Longtime Telluride ski patroller Emil Sante — and the San Miguel County coroner — was the second to respond and helped revive Hazard. A helicopter flew Hazard to St. Mary’s Hospital in Grand Junction where he died 18 days later. Sante said Hazard died of a heart attack.
Feb. 14 — Snowboarder Connor Gill, a 26-year-old from Lakewood, was reported missing on Vail ski area at the start of a historic snowstorm that buried the resort with more than four feet of snow. Searchers spent 14 days scouring the ski area’s tree runs before he was found in a rarely traveled section of the mountain adjacent to an intermediate run. He was not wearing a helmet and died of blunt force trauma to his head and torso.
Feb. 18 — Skier Pete Van De Carr, the 70-year-old owner of Steamboat Springs’ Backdoor Sports, died in a tree well at Steamboat ski area. The ski area received more than 80 inches of new snow in the previous 10 days. It was the second tree well suffocation death at Steamboat since January 2023.
Feb. 26 — Skier Clifford Hastings Johnson III, 76, of both Aspen and Houston, died after a long fall down Highland Bowl at Aspen Highlands. He was wearing a helmet and suffered blunt force trauma.
Feb. 28 — Snowboarder Andrew Lenz, 22, from Verona, Wisconsin, fell on the intermediate Centennial Run at Beaver Creek. He was wearing a helmet and suffered blunt force trauma to his head and torso.
March 11 — Skier Matthew Chambers, 61, from Fort Lupton, struck a light tower on the intermediate Haywood run at Keystone ski area. He was wearing a helmet.
March 18 — Skier Andrew McDonald, a 20-year-old from Shawnee, Kansas, fell on the intermediate Lupin trail at Winter Park and struck a tree. He was wearing a helmet.
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