(Denali Park, AK.) A Denali National Park employee was killed in an avalanche while backcountry skiing in the park. Thirty-two-year-old Eric Walter was skiing on a north facing slope of an unnamed peak near mile 10 of the Park Road Thursday. Denali National Park public affairs officer Sharon Stiteler says a visitor alerted the agency about the slide.
“That they had witnessed a lone skier, and as the skier was going down it triggered an avalanche.”
Stiteler says park rangers immediately responded and looking through a spotting scope observed skis and a bag in the slide zone.
“And then Park Service helicopters and rangers from Talkeetna were dispatched to the site and then they short hauled out to where the skis were and it was determined that the skier was dead, and then we found out that it was one of our park staff.”
Stiteler says Eric Walter was a long time and much-loved National Park Service employee, who in recent years worked for the Alaska Regional Communications Center at Denali providing radio-based safety support and dispatch services for National Park Service operations statewide. ###
Snow Slide Kills Skier in Denali National Park
Dan Bross