A Copper Mountain snowboarder ski patrol assist an injured person down the slopes on a stretcher, Dec. 17, 2022, in Summit County. (Hugh Carey/The Colorado Sun file)
At least 13 men died on Colorado’s ski slopes in the 2025-26 season, about the same as recent seasons despite a snow-starved winter that reduced annual skier traffic by a few million visits.
The Colorado Sun surveys 17 county coroners every May to assemble a list of fatalities inside the boundaries of the state’s 28 operating ski areas. Colorado ski areas do not publicly report deaths or injuries.
The deaths in the 2025-26 ski season, which did not include any females, occurred at 11 ski areas — only Keystone saw more than one death. The deaths included 12 skiers and one snowboarder, ages 25 to 74. Nine of the deaths were from trauma sustained in a fall or from colliding with a tree. No one died in a collision with another skier. Three men died of heart attacks, up from two the previous season. One man suffocated after falling into a tree well, a dangerous void beneath conifer trees that can trap skiers.
Last year Colorado coroners counted at least 13 deaths caused by incidents inside the boundaries of Colorado ski areas. At least 15 people died at Colorado resorts in the 2023-24 season, and at least 17 died in 2022-23. The highest number of deaths recorded was in 2011-12, another very low snow year, when there were 22 deaths at Colorado ski areas.
(We say “at least” because there is no formal accounting of ski-related deaths in Colorado and resort-area coroners are not always able to track ski-related deaths that occur outside their counties.)
The National Ski Areas Association reported 50 fatalities in the 2024-25 ski season. The 10-year average for the industry is 44 deaths per season. But the industry does not count medical events in its annual tally of “sport-related trauma” fatalities at ski areas.
It’s expected that Colorado ski areas next month will report a very large decline in visitation for the 2025-26 ski season, which saw resorts struggling to open terrain with weak snow and warm temperatures. Nationally, resorts saw a decline of 9 million visits in 2025-26, marking the second largest annual drop ever.
The thin snow in the winter of 2025-26 limited backcountry traffic beyond resort boundaries as well.
Only one person died in an avalanche in Colorado last winter: a 58-year-old man from Silverthorne who was skiing alone south of Vail Pass in early March. The 2025-26 ski season was the third season in a row where avalanche deaths in Colorado fell well below the long-term average.
“The conditions have been poor and I think that may have a lot to do with it,” said Clear Creek County Coroner Chris Hegmann, who did not investigate any deaths at the Loveland and Echo Mountain ski areas in his county. “Not as many people on the mountain equals less chance of accidents.”
Dec. 2, 2025, Eldora Mountain Resort: Steven Kless, a 63-year-old retired librarian from Boulder, died from a heart attack. The county coroner listed the cause of death as hypertensive cardiovascular disease.Dec. 22, 2025, at Vail Mountain: A 49-year-old Avon man died from a heart attack while skinning up the yet-to-open Blue Ox Trail.Dec. 19, 2025, at Aspen Mountain: Jeff Handwerk, a 74-year-old resident of Carbondale and renowned local cyclist, died Dec. 20 in a Grand Junction hospital following a Dec. 19 collision with a tree. His cause of death was multisystem blunt force trauma. He was wearing a helmet.Jan. 7, 2026, at Keystone: Eric Baltz, a 59-year-old skier from Westminster, was found unresponsive on The Grizz, an advanced run in Keystone’s Outback terrain. The Summit County coroner ruled his cause of death as cardiovascular disease.Jan. 19, 2026, at Keystone: William Marcus Hunnicutt, a 32-year-old snowboarder from Aurora, died following a crash on the advanced Lower Go Devil run near the Mountain House base area. The Summit County coroner said he died of blunt-force trauma. He was wearing a helmet, and the crash did not involve other people or trees. An obituary for Hunnicutt said “severe conditions led to a devastating accident.”Jan. 22, 2026, at Snowmass: Rohan Verplank, a 48-year-old skier who worked as a Snowmass ski instructor, was found dead on the intermediate Lower Creekside run in the Two Creeks area of Snowmass. His cause of death was blunt force trauma to his chest. He was wearing a helmet.Jan. 23, 2026, at Copper Mountain: A 44-year-old man from Stillwater, Minnesota — Eric Battjes — died after hitting a tree on the American Flyer intermediate run. He was wearing a helmet.Feb. 20, 2026, at Wolf Creek: A 33-year-old skier from Durango died after falling into a tree well. The Mineral County coroner said the man was wearing a helmet and he was found upside down in a tree well. He died of positional asphyxia.Feb. 28, 2026, at Vail Mountain: A 43-year-old skier from Chile was airlifted to a Denver trauma center after hitting a tree in Vail Mountain’s Big Rock Park area of Vail’s Blue Sky Basin. He died March 1 from blunt force injuries to his head. He was wearing a helmet.March 10, 2026, at Steamboat: A 73-year-old man from Wisconsin — Stanley Clements — died at the Medical Center of the Rockies in Loveland after an accident at the Steamboat ski area that fractured his neck. He was wearing a helmet.March 11, 2026, at Breckenridge: Troy Miller, a 55-year-old from Calabasas, Calif., died following a crash in the Lake Chutes area, which is hike-to, double-black-diamond terrain on Peak 8. The Summit County coroner said he died of “multiple blunt force injuries.” He was wearing a helmet and skiing alone when he fell.March 20, 2026, at Beaver Creek: A 55-year-old male skier from Orange, Conn., died following a crash on the intermediate Larkspur trail. The cause of death was a severe head injury due to blunt force trauma. He was wearing a helmet.March 21, 2026, at Steamboat: Jack McGrath, a 25-year-old resident of Steamboat Springs, died from blunt force injuries following a crash on Buddy’s Run, an intermediate trail off the Storm Peak Express. He was wearing a helmet.
