{"id":23379,"date":"2025-02-24T18:21:45","date_gmt":"2025-02-25T01:21:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/berthoud-pass-avalanche-kills-backcountry-traveler\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T22:35:04","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:35:04","slug":"berthoud-pass-avalanche-kills-backcountry-traveler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/berthoud-pass-avalanche-kills-backcountry-traveler\/","title":{"rendered":"Berthoud Pass avalanche kills backcountry traveler"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"A
A Feb. 22 avalanche on The Fingers, a northwest-facing slope above the Berthoud Pass parking lot east of U.S. 40 killed a 50-year-old backcountry traveler. (Courtesy of Breckenridge Ski Patrol\/Flight for Life\/CAIC)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A 50-year-old elementary schoolteacher and renowned river surfer died Saturday in an avalanche above Berthoud Pass.<\/p>\n

Grand County rescuers were called to Berthoud Pass around 4:45 p.m. following calls that a skier had been involved in an avalanche in an area called The Fingers, just east of U.S. 40 above the pass parking lot.<\/p>\n

The avalanche on the steep northwest-facing slope was a large, persistent slab, according to an initial report by the Colorado Avalanche Information Center.<\/p>\n

The avalanche death is the third in Colorado this winter and the second fatality in less than a week. A 41-year-old Crested Butte snowboarder was killed Feb. 20 in a slide on The Nose west of Silverton in the Mineral Creek basin. A slide on The Nose in February 2021 killed three skiers from Eagle.<\/p>\n

Friends identified the man killed in the Berthoud Pass slide as Nathan Ginn, an art teacher for elementary school students who was well known at Colorado\u2019s river surf waves, especially at River Run Park on the South Platte in Sheridan and the Scout Wave in Salida.<\/p>\n

A post on the SuperCriticalFlows.com river surfing website said he volunteered for the Chill Foundation, teaching kids to river surf and skateboard. Ginn\u2019s YouTube channel has several videos showing him powder surfing on Berthoud Pass. Powder surfing is riding a board similar to a snowboard, but without bindings. It is unclear what Ginn was riding when he died Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cNathan had a calming effect with the children he would work with and would easily gain respect and cooperation from the youth he would teach both in the school setting and in the waves and skateparks,\u201d reads the post on the river surfing website. \u201cNathan also had an infectious smile and personality. His main goal was to make sure everyone else felt welcome and were having as good of a time as he was.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A
A Feb. 22 avalanche on Gravel Mountain near Grand Lake caught four snowmobilers, all of whom escaped without injury. (Courtesy of Colorado Avalanche Information Center)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Separately, Grand County rescuers at 2:25 p.m. on Saturday responded to a call of an avalanche on Gravel Mountain near Grand Lake, an area popular with snowmobilers.<\/p>\n

An initial accident report from the avalanche center said \u201cnumerous people were climbing and jumping off the cornices of Gravel Mountain\u201d when a slide caught four snowmobilers. They were recovered without any injuries.<\/p>\n

The Colorado Sun is a reader-supported, nonpartisan news organization dedicated to covering Colorado issues. To learn more, go to coloradosun.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ginn, 50, a renowned river surfer, is identified as victim<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23380,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[377,233,28,976],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-23379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-avalanche-landslide","tag-coloradosun-com","tag-headlines","tag-outdoor-recreation"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23379"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23379\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78091,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23379\/revisions\/78091"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23379"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=23379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}