Two People Are Killed in Separate Colorado Avalanches

Two people were killed and four others were caught in two separate avalanches in Colorado since Friday, the authorities said.

The Pitkin County Sheriff’s Office said on Sunday on Facebook that an avalanche in the Maroon Bowl area of Highland Peak outside the ski area of Aspen Highlands claimed the life of one person.

The office said two other skiers were caught in the avalanche but were able to extricate themselves.

“Responders from Mountain Rescue Aspen are working with Aspen Highlands Ski Patrol to safely access the two other skiers and remove them from the avalanche area,” the sheriff’s office said in a post Sunday afternoon.

The person who was killed was not publicly identified.

That avalanche came after another one on Friday in which a man was killed and two other people had to be rescued a little over 20 miles west, in Rapid Creek, Colo.

The man killed in that avalanche was identified as Joel Shute, 36, of Glenwood Springs, Colo., the Gunnison County Sheriff’s Office said on Facebook.

Family and friends described Mr. Shute as a man who loved the outdoors. “He was literally born to ski,” Lisa Gerstner, his mother, told the television station KDVR.

Officials said Mr. Shute was one of two skiers and a splitboarder — someone using a snowboard that is split into halves — who were caught in an avalanche near Chair Mountain, west of the town of Marble, about a 75-minute drive from Aspen.

Mr. Shute’s body was recovered on Saturday, buried in about four feet of avalanche debris, the Colorado Avalanche Information Center said in a preliminary accident report.

The other two men with him were injured, but one was able to hike out of the backcountry to seek help, the report said. The other skier was rescued by helicopter on Friday, the center said.

The center has so far recorded a total of nine deaths, out of 17 people caught in avalanches in the 2022-23 season. That toll compares with seven deaths, out of 20 people caught in avalanches in the 2021-22 season.