CALGARY- Officials from Sunshine Village say they did everything possible to prevent an inbounds avalanche, but the incident that left two men with serious injuries has some rethinking how they use the mountain.
On Monday afternoon, the pair was caught up in a slide on a run called Milky Way in Delirium Dive, which is an inbounds, free ride zone. The area is only open to users with avalanche gear and beacons.
Craig Pajek watched the scene unfold as he stood with friends on a lookout point above Delirium Dive. He says that the men had only done a couple of turns on the run when the entire slope below them fractured, breaking down to bare rock.
The men tumbled hundreds of feet down the steep slope, including over two cliffs. One of them was buried, and dug out by ski patrollers. Incredibly, both men survived.
“It was brutal. It was the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen,” Pajek says, adding the avalanche has changed his perception of how safe it is.
WATCH: YouTube video captures the aftermath of the slide. Warning: explicit content
Delirium Dive remained closed on Tuesday for avalanche control, including helicopter bombing.
Officials from the ski resort say they did exhaustive avalanche mitigation in the week before the slide, including setting off multiple rounds of explosives. Ski patrollers also criss-crossed Milky Way on Monday morning, to test the run for avalanches.
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