EISENHOWER TUNNEL AVALANCHE MAR2020, TRIAL CONTINUES

Back in March of 2020 (as many may have heard last year), two snowboarders in Colorado triggered an avalanche in the backcountry that buried a road and destroyed an expensive avalanche mitigation system. Naturally, they reported the incident to their local avalanche centre (in this case, the Colorado Avalanche Information Center or CAIC) and even offered helmet cam footage of the slide to help the CAIC with education and awareness efforts. 

However, the county’s district attorney caught wind of the video, and the two snowboarders are have been charged with reckless endangerment and $168,000 in compensation for the property damage... and their footage is being used against them in court.

This has put the CAIC in a tight spot. The director and forecaster of the CAIC have since been subpoenaed to testify as expert witnesses in the trial, and there is concern that their involvement in the case may affect their ability to gather avalanche information in the future. 

An interesting article from SkiMag has all the recent news and details surrounding the trial, while also digging deeper into the conflicting relationships between backcountry responsibility, information sharing and the law.