Two members of U.S. ski team killed in avalanche in Austrian Alps
U.S. Alpine director Patrick Riml says the team 'is in shock' over the deaths of 20-year-old Ronnie Berlack and 19-year-old Bryce Astle.
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Published: Monday, January 5, 2015, 1:13 PM
Updated: Monday, January 5, 2015, 8:55 PM
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SARAH BRUNSON/AP
SARAH BRUNSON/AP
The U.S. ski team says (l.) Ronnie Berlack, 20, and (r.) Bryce Astle, 19, died Monday in the incident near Rettenbach glacier, the venue for the annual season-opening World Cup races.
Two young U.S. Ski Team prospects were killed Monday in Austria when a wall of snow swept down the side of the Gaislachkogl, a 10,000-foot-high peak near Soelden, where the American national team has a training base.
Their training session canceled, Ronnie Berlack and Bryce Astle were skiing recreationally when the avalanche overtook them. Their coaches joined a large group of rescuers with search dogs but were unable to dig the skiers out in time to save them.
A member of the team’s staff briefed on the incident told the Daily News Astle and Berlack were part of a group of six American and British racers using chairlifts to access wilder terrain on the side of the resort. Astle and Berlack were partway down a steep, treeless slope when the last member of the group to begin the descent triggered the slide.
The other members of the party skied to safety but the avalanche overtook Astle and Berlack, who were not carrying avalanche beacons, the radio transceiver units that help rescuers locate a buried skier.
“The ski areas over here are so different from in America,” the team staff member said. “There aren’t rope line boundaries. They might put a sign up to say there’s a risk, but they don’t control the avalanche danger nearly as much.”
Berlack, 20, and Astle, 19, had been traveling with the U.S. Ski Team's development squad, hoping to qualify for a place on the FIS World Cup circuit. Berlack was a graduate of Vermont's Burke Mountain Academy, while Astle was a product of Utah's Snowbird Sports Education Foundation.
"He was just out here at our Christmas camp last week giving a wonderful presentation to the little kids in the program," said Heather Walker, a coach at the Snowbird team who is close to Astle's family. "He was telling them how hard he worked, about his continued discipline and training. It was jam-packed."
ROBERT PRATTA/REUTERSTwo U.S. skiers, Bryce Astle and Ronnie Berlack, are killed by an avalanche in the Austrian Alps.
Berlack had also recently returned to spend time with his old team, one of about 400 nationwide that feed athletes into the national team.
"Only last week Ronnie was here at BMA training with us," said Burke headmaster Kirk Dwyer in a statement. "He had a huge spirit. There is no one who better represents our core values than Ronnie."
The slide happened near the Rettenbach glacier, a popular training site for ski racers above the Tyrolean town of Soelden. The surrounding area is defined by glaciers that have carved the mountains into sharp peaks, knife-edge ridges and wide open bowls of year-round snow.
The U.S. Ski Team established a training base there in 2011, securing a cluster of apartments so that the team's athletes and coaches could rest and relax between breaks in the racing schedule without flying home to the United States.
"Ronnie and Bryce were both outstanding ski racers who were passionate about their sport — both on the race course and skiing the mountain," said Tiger Shaw, president and CEO of the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association, which administers the U.S. Ski Team. "Our hearts go out to the Berlack and Astle families, as well as to their extended sport family. Both of them loved what they did and conveyed that to those around them."
