Colorado snowboarder dies in avalanche in San Juan Mountains

CNN ^ | March 18, 2022 | Alaa Elassar,

[BenLurkin]

The 29-year-old, identified as Devin Overton from Telluride, was solo snowboarding in backcountry when he was caught in the avalanche south of Trout Lake, the Colorado Avalanche Information Center (CAIC) said in a press release.

Overton's body was discovered when an employee for Telluride Helitrax, a skiing and snowboarding guide service, noticed a large avalanche, "with a set of tracks entering a slide path and none exiting,"

Overton's body was found buried two meters under the snow, according to CAIC.

Overton was sponsored by Venture Snowboards, a snowboarding manufacturer based in Silverton, Colorado.

Overton began snowboarding when he was 6 years old and spent much of his free time snowboarding in the San Juan Mountains, according to his Venture Snowboards profile.

The avid snowboarder said in his profile that he lived for "brutally early mornings and painfully long climbs rewarded with magical views, blower powder, and a genuine feeling of happiness."

"Nearly every day I can stand on a big peak beside a couple of my closest friends, with thousands of feet great snow below us, as I spin in a circle identifying all the amazing places I've ridden my snowboard before, all the crazy places I know I'll soon explore,"

[Mears]

Ugh…I have family members in Telluride right now.

.

[Zuriel]

So sad. As he lay trapped and unable to breathe he probably wasn’t thinking, “At least I’m dying doing what I love”.

Glad I survived my daring years to enjoy my wife and family well into my 60s.

[BobL]

Rad, dude.

[DonaldC]

Play stupid games with nature….

[rlmorel]

There were times in my life I just could not see how I was going to live past 30.

Just couldn’t visualize it.

I wasn’t a daredevil or risk-taker. I lacked commonsense, and would find myelf in situations going around a corner on two wheels or going airborne in a vehicle.

I didn’t say “let’s get airborne when we go over that back-road bridge!”

I just found myself there, doing it. It took me many years to get close to the levels of commonsense that I felt most others had. I always had to learn the hard way.

And I still do.

But...I sure am glad I made it to hear. Getting old does suck, but...mentally, I find the mindset to be far preferable to those young days in which every tingling nerve end in your body could overwhelm your ability to to the “smart” thing.

[Secret Agent Man]

Thats a stupid assumption on your part.

[Does so]

“As he lay trapped and unable to breathe he probably wasn’t thinking, “At least I’m dying doing what I love”.

Motorcyclists seldom get that kind of reflection.

A couple on a bike stopped for a red light near one of the few traffic signals in my county got rear-ended by a van. Neither knew what killed them.

[Does so]

“I didn’t say “let’s get airborne when we go over that back-road bridge!”

In 1960, there was long wooden bridge in Green Cove Springs, FL. You couldn’t get airborne, but it was fun at 90 with the speed limit being 10!

My three passengers silently endured my driving to NAS several times a year.

[trebb]

Put your mask back on - and get that next booster....

[CodeToad]

To be old and wise one must first survive being young and stupid.

[HartleyMBaldwin]

“Getting old does suck, but...mentally, I find the mindset to be far preferable to those young days in which every tingling nerve end in your body could overwhelm your ability to do the “smart” thing.”

How true. I used to think it would be nice to have my body rejuvenated somehow, but to retain my memories so I wouldn’t have to do all those dumb things again. Eventually I realized that having that youthful energy would cause me to do dumb things anyway, maybe just not the same things.

[plain talk]

“I wasn’t a daredevil or risk-taker. I lacked commonsense”

I think many of us can relate to your comments to various degrees. As you say it wasn’t so much intentional as I let things get out of control without quickly reigning them in.

[rlmorel]

Sigh. I can imagine my parents thinking I had to be lying, when they said variously “What were you thinking?” when I replied “I don’t know.”

I really didn’t know sometimes. It wasn’t like I had preconceived ideas that came to fruition...I just found myself surveying the wreckage as I wondered how things had gone so wrong.

[rlmorel]

Hahahaha...I have said that often (especially when my body has the aches of age) that I sure wouldn’t mind having that 18 year old body again, but unless I could keep all the lessons I learned, it was going to. be a hard “No!”

[Tijeras_Slim]

You can do everything right in the mountains and still get killed. RIP

[rlmorel]

I had a 1966 Dodge van that looked almost exactly like this at my disposal during my junior and senior year in high school...

Gosh, how I loved that van. I was notorious...everyone knew that van. I was so lucky. Some kids drove a Pinto, or something like that, but...I was given a van, and that was some privelege. It had a slant six in it, and I drove that everywhere and never once, not even once changed the oil. (That was before I became a jet mechanic in the USN, and I knew nothing about cars)

One Friday night, we were casting about for dates, and we called nearly every girl I had in my little black book (yes, I had one) until we came across one, and she had a friend who was staying with for the weekend, so I asked if they wanted to go to a drive in with my buddy and I...and they accepted.

Later, when we were driving home after the movie down a rural road I was unfamiliar with, my date was having an awkward conversation with me, the driver, and my buddy and her friend were getting hot and heavy in the back of the van. I didn't know the road, and was frustrated it wasn't ME in the back, and when I hit that bridge doing about forty which was at the top of a small blind hill, the entire van became airborne.

My 1966 Dodge Van turned into a terrestrial version of "The Vomit Comet", the plane astronauts go up in to train for weightlessness.

As the van hurtled through the air, my buddy, his date, and the blanket they were on all became weightless, and were floating in mid-air in the back of the van.

The van slammed back onto the descending part of the hill, and the force of the impact made the pop-up top of the camper pop up just as the amorous couple in the back slammed back to the floor, and a heavy iron pipe (used for a stretcher-cot in the pop-up came down on top of them...fortunately nobody was hurt by it.

For me, the ordeal was not yet over. as soon as the vehicle hit the pavement, there was a 90 degree turn right ahead of me, and I went around it on two wheels.

It all happened pretty fast, but 45 years later, in my mind, that is all in slow motion...:)