Skier death offers grim reminder: don’t go alone

According to Stowe Mountain Rescue chief Jon Wehse, the tragedy underscores the danger of heading outside the controlled confines of resort skiing and riding, a popular activity that nonetheless needs to be approached with care — and with friends.

“He broke the number one rule, the cardinal rule of backcountry skiing, which is don’t ski alone,” Wehse said. “If he was with a buddy, he probably could have been rescued. At least he would have had a huge chance of being rescued.”

Instead, rescuers ultimately found themselves on a recovery mission, one that was perhaps only made possible because they were able to locate Ralph’s general location by pinging his cellphone. Even then, getting to him was an arduous task.

Wehse was careful to avoid speculating on how Ralph may have died but said he had ejected from his skis on the descent.

According to The Putnam County Courier, the newspaper of record for Cold Spring, Ralph worked at Manhattan investment firm Hunter Point Capital.

Company officials told the Courier in a statement, “The entire Hunter Point Capital team is devastated by the tragic loss of our colleague and friend Brooks Ralph, who will be dearly missed.”

Long, cold night

After receiving notice that Ralph was missing, a four-person Stowe Mountain Rescue crew rode the gondola to the top and began hiking up the Cliff Trail, a popular summertime route to the Mt. Mansfield summit that Wehse and crew knew would likely be the most accessible way up, without having to deal with bushwhacking.

Eventually, after about 100 feet of ascent, the crews reached a large rock wall that they had to traverse before they could make their way further.

At one point, the crew had to break out their crampons and ice axes and do some straight-up rock climbing up a 25-foot wall. Typically, crews try to stay on the ground to make navigating more efficient. Sometimes, that’s not an option.

“We don’t do that too often, but we have the gear, and we have the training, and that was a fastest way after assessing the risks or the time, because we were still working on a time constraint,” he said, noting that the team was operating on the hope that Ralph was still alive.

Once they got closer to Ralph, and saw the ski track, they started falling into rock holes and “the pucker factor went really high.”

Overhead, a National Guard helicopter hovered, lighting up the area for the rescuers.

Wehse said that, juxtaposed with the harrowing events of last Tuesday night was a serene, clear black sky that turned into dawn before the recovery was over.

“Such a painful tragedy, and yet the sun still rises as usual,” the team posted on Facebook, accompanied by a photo of the sunrise and a thick blanket of snow covering the mountain and resort village below.

Don’t go alone

In addition to the primary credo of not going into the woods without a partner, Stowe Mountain Rescue posted other underlying rules for the backcountry: tell someone your anticipated route and timeline and carry a first aid kit, a headlamp, a spare phone battery and, perhaps, a fire-starting kit.

Wehse said the battery power is key, as smartphone technology has become one of the most important aids for locating someone in the wilderness.

He said as backcountry skiing has gotten more popular, the so-called “side country” has also beckoned. That type of off-piste skiing and riding is commonly accessible by folks who use the resort lifts and then either hit the woods in between trails or hike a short way to areas above the reach of the highest lift or the tree line.

Wehse said when skiers make their ways uphill through the backcountry under their own power, whether on skis or snowshoes, they get to observe the terrain they’ll be hitting on the way down.

They see the hazards; they get a feel for the type of snow or the overall pitch of the fall-line. They understand the tree density and the snowpack, which changes from the bottom to the top, he said.

“The issue with the side country is that you don’t need that. You can ride the gondola, scoot into the woods and hit Angel Food and you’ve had zero training, zero knowledge, zero buddy talk about how to deal with backcountry dangers or adventures,” he said. “It’s the experience, but with no effort.”

The Angel Food glade Wehse referred to is one of the most popular locals’ runs on a powder day, accessible by ducking into the woods off the Chin Clip trail. When the descent is over, skiers and riders can hop right back onto the trail and hit the gondola again.

But even in-bounds wooded areas can pose a danger to skiers or riders who attempt them alone. In 2017, a snowboarder from Massachusetts died at Stowe after falling face down into an 8-foot-deep snow pit caused by a stream that rescuers said had not frozen over but had likely been filled with fresh snow, masking the hazard.

The rider was found less than 90 feet into the woods off the Cliff Trail, buried from head to mid-thigh.

Wehse said he has no idea of Ralph’s skill level, and noted he wasn’t in some unknown secret stash but was reportedly skiing a well-known section of Mansfield.

The Rock Garden is the subject of more than a few first-person videos skiers post to YouTube and other sites that make the turns over and through jagged edges and crevices blunted and softened by powder. These “hero videos” make Wehse and other rescuers cringe.

He said if a skier had been hiking up to the Rock Garden last week, they would have experienced the same thing the mountain rescue folks did: a whole lot of post-holing though snow into all manner of holes and crevices. They likely would have recognized the danger and wouldn’t have attempted the run, he said.

“With the inexperienced crowds who are just looking for the hero video, they don’t have a go, no-go risk calculator built into their head,” he said. “To them, it’s just: Powder. Go.”