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March 10 (UPI) -- A skier has died after falling nearly 600 feet down a ravine on Mount Washington in New Hampshire over the weekend, officials said Sunday. Twenty-year-old Madison Saltsburg and two others were backcountry skiing on Saturday and faced hard, icy conditions and open crevasses that created slippery and dangerous surfaces on the mountain, U.S. Forest Service public affairs specialist Colleen Mainville said.
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The skier "suffered fatal traumatic injuries" after falling down Tuckerman Ravine, Mainville said in a news release. The two survivors suffered non-life-threatening injuries.
The Forest Service and Mount Washington Avalanche Center conducted a rescue effort to evacuate Saltsburg off the mountain, Mainville said.
She added the avalanche center's snow ranger team was faced with another situation Saturday in which two other skiers sustained traumatic injuries from accidents involving rocks and ice.
On its website, the Forest Service said the Tuckerman Ravine Trail The Forest Service says the Tuckerman Ravine Trail is covered in snow and ice in the winter and has "highly exposed steep cliffs and slopes below it."
"From late fall through late spring or even early summer, think of it more as a mountaineering ascent than a hike. The consequences of a fall or being involved in an avalanche can be dire," it said.
The agency said navigating avalanche terrain requires expertise in the user of mountaineering tools, including ice axes and crampons. Mainville did not know Sunday whether the skiers had that equipment.
The Appalachian Mountain Club, which operates huts on Mount Washington, describes Tuckerman Ravine as "the birthplace of extreme skiing in the U.S."
