Saturday, January 06, 2007

Berthoud Pass Avalanche - the Dangerous Stanley Path -UPDATE-

I just walked into my house, flipped on the television and saw that there has been a deadly avalanche just up the road from an very good friend of mine. She lives about 10 miles from Berthoud Pass and she does some backwoods skiing. Luckily I think that she only skis during the week in order to avoid the crowds, even in the back country. Check out this Avalanche map of the Berthoud Pass area (it is currently hard to access), if you scroll down to the bottom of the map you will find shaded area number 5, named Stanley and shaded area number 6 named Stanley Banks (Stanley Banks is centered on US Rte. 40); one of those avalanche paths appear to be where the slide occured. The red line meandering up the right side of the map is US Highway 40. The area below Stanley Banks appears to be particularly steep, the road is at 10,300 feet, the mountain drops to 9800 feet within 500 feet horizontally. My prayers go out to any of those who may be still caught under the snow and to those who are searching.

UPDATE:
New video shows that the avalanche was in the area called the Stanley Slide Path, number 5 on the linked map. There have been reports that the two recovered cars were pushed off of the road. US highway 40 is at an elevation of about 10,150 feet when it goes through the Stanley path, the mountain drops to 9800 feet within 500 feet horizontally.

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1 Comments:

Blogger Blando said...

El Rider,

My name is Mark Bland and I was one of the eight people caught in the Berthoud Pass Avalanche on the Stanley Slide on January 6, 2007. I wanted to thank you for your prayers on that day. If you're interested in you can read my account of the avalanche on my blog:
http://www.markbland.net/?blg=20070106.blg
Thanks again and God Bless.
-Mark Bland

9:15 PM  

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