U.S. professional skier among 2 dead in Japanese avalanche | CBC News

One of two foreign men swept up in an avalanche in Japan while back-country skiing in the central prefecture of Nagano and found without vital signs on Monday was U.S. professional skier Kyle Smaine, an outdoor magazine said.

The men were among five foreigners engulfed in Sunday’s avalanche, which took place at about 2:30 p.m. local time on the eastern slope of 2,469-metre-high Mount Hakuba Norikura, a Nagano police spokesperson said.

Police declined to confirm details about the men, whom media said were from Austria and the United States, but outdoor magazine Mountain Gazette said in its online edition that the U.S. skier was Kyle Smaine, 31.

“It is with great sadness we report beloved South Lake Tahoe professional skier Kyle Smaine has died in an avalanche in Japan,” the magazine wrote.

It said that Smaine, on a work trip to the area, was taking a free ski at the end of the day with several other skiers when the avalanche occurred.

The Associated Press reported that three of the five survived — two uninjured and a third with a shoulder injury. They walked down with the other party, leaving behind the two who were already without vital signs when dug out, police said.

AP also said that another party of eight foreign skiers, who saw the five engulfed in the avalanche while also skiing outside of the designated ski slope in the area, rushed over to dig them up.

U.S. photographer Grant Gunderson, who had been skiing with Smaine before the avalanche, said in a post on Instagram that a ski group in the area “consisting of two Canadian mountain guides and four or five emergency doctors/nurses etc. as clients performed the rescue. The doctors did everything they could for Kyle and the other skier.”

Japanese weather authorities had issued an avalanche warning for the area, following heavy snowfall in the past few days.