couloir

The forecaster, Nick Burks, 37, was backcountry skiing on Gunsight Mountain in the Elkhorn Mountains in northeastern Oregon on March 6 when he triggered an avalanche at the top of a couloir, or crevasse, in the mountain, the Colorado Avalanche Information Center reported.

As of late March, the two remaining deceased climbers were assumed to be buried by additional snowfall and subsequent avalanches near the couloir’s base.

On Feb. 19, a group of six climbers were climbing a steep, narrow gully — called a couloir — on the peak near Leavenworth when an avalanche crashed down the mountainside.

The terrain on Colchuck’s northeast couloir made the small avalanche deadly.

“Due to the weather conditions, they climbed into a really dangerous situation probably unknowingly, because it had been very windy and that wind had blown all the snow over the top of Colchuck Peak and settled in the couloir and triggered the wind slab,” Gyselinck said.