Valley locals Lathrop Strang and Fletcher Yaw had just skied into the Laundry Chutes off the northeast facing summit of Mount Sopris on Friday when Strang hit some “weird snow,” slipped and then started tumbling.
“Yaw saw him fall,” said Mario Strobl, a patrol director with the Pitkin County Sheriff’s Office who debriefed Yaw. “He said Strang was cartwheeling down the chute and then hit a rock and went over a cliff.”
The fall down the steep and icy chute proved fatal for Strang, a 46-year-old father of one who grew up in the Roaring Fork Valley and was an experienced and skilled backcountry skier.
News of Lathrop’s Strang’s death was especially hard for many in the valley to hear.
Not only is the Strang family well-known and highly regarded in the valley — Mike Strang, Lathrop’s father, once represented Colorado in Congress — Lathrop’s tragic fall comes during a winter when three other popular skiers or snowboarders have also died in backcountry skiing accidents.
Yaw, 35, also grew up in the valley and is a strong skier. He told Strobl that he skied down the same chute after Strang but that he got “cliffed out.”
“He said there was a lot of blue ice and that he threw his ski equipment over the ice and tried to climb down but couldn’t,” Strobl said. “So he climbed back up and came down an alternate route to get to Strang and it took a pretty long time. He said he was surprised to find him still alive.”
Yaw described Strang as being conscious and unresponsive, but also “combative,” according to Strobl.
Strang, who was not wearing a helmet, had taken his hat and gloves off, a behavior that can be evidence of a severe head injury or hypothermia. Yaw worked to keep Strang warm by putting extra clothes on him and zipping up Strang’s hands in his jacket.
“He was with him for awhile and then he had to decide to get some help, because no one was aware of what had happened,” Strobl said. Yaw did not have a cell phone with him and began making his way back to the trailhead.
“I think the guys took all the precautions that they needed to and it was just an unfortunate accident,” Strobl said.
The day had started when Yaw, Strang, Anda Smalls and Penn and Kirsten Newhard, who is Yaw’s younger sister, left the trailhead at the West Sopris Creek/Prince Creek divide on the lower slopes of Mount Sopris at 5:30 a.m.
“At just after nine we reached the summit ridge above Thomas Lakes bowl, the standard winter ascent route,” said Kirsten and Penn Newhard in an e-mail to local reporters on Saturday morning. “Conditions were sunny, solid, with 2-to-3 inches of new snow and temps warming from a cold night. Our group was experienced and in good spirits. Strang mentioned he had skied Sopris every spring since 1984.
“Penn Newhard descended from the ridge forgoing the summit as he had work obligations,” the Newhards’ e-mail said. Kirsten then accompanied her brother, Strang and Smalls to the summit, where they spent an hour.
At 10 a.m., the four skiers decided to ski two different routes off the mountain, with Newhard and Smalls going down one route and Strang and Yaw choosing to ski “the Laundry Chutes.” The four agreed to meet up back at the trailhead.
According to Lou Dawson, an experienced local skier who runs a blog about backcountry skiing called Wildsnow.com, the chutes gained their name from another veteran backcountry skier named Chris Landry.
“The name comes from Chris Landry’s nickname when he was ski racing, which was ‘Laundry Chute,’” Dawson wrote on his blog Saturday. “Back in the 1960s or 1970s, Chris enjoyed climbing the chutes and some folks got to calling them after his nickname. It’s unknown who did the first descents of any of the chutes, nor if Chris actually ever skied them. In those early days they were viewed more as snow climb challenges than ski descents.”
(The initial story on the incident in Saturday’s Aspen Daily News mistakenly reported that the accident had happened in the Crystal Chute, which are located on a different part of Mount Sopris).
The Laundry Chutes are visible on the upper slopes of Mount Sopris from the Roaring Fork Valley. When looking at the mountain from Missouri Heights, for example, the chutes are off the top and to the left of the upvalley peak of Sopris, which has twin summits.
Dawson has a close-up photo of the chutes posted on his Web site, and according to Pitkin County Sheriff’s Deputy Adam Crider, Yaw and Strang skied the chute on the far skier’s left in the series of narrow and steep chutes.
After skiing their route down Sopris, Kirsten Newhard and Anda Smalls reached the trailhead and waited for Yaw and Strang.
Newhard and Smalls “hoped that the two skiers were simply bushwacking or dealing with broken gear,” according to the Newhard’s e-mail message. “Route finding can be tricky on the lower mountain and equipment can break. When Strang and Yaw were several hours late, the other three skiers contacted the sheriff's department, knowing that time for a rescue might be needed before darkness set in.”
Deputy Crider drove to the trailhead and by that time, Yaw was there and told him that Strang was critically injured with a head injury and still on the mountain.
Mountain Rescue Aspen crews had already been called out to assist in a rescue, but Crider and Strobl called for a Flight-for-Life helicopter from the St. Anthony Summit Medical Center in Frisco to try to help Strang.
The pilot battled high winds but was able to locate Strang lying high on the slopes of Mount Sopris.
The helicopter found a landing spot near Strang and medical personnel aboard the helicopter reached Strang and declared him deceased on the scene, according to Strobl.
The helicopter returned to the trailhead and picked up personnel from Mountain Rescue to help assist with recovering Strang’s body. At about 5:45 p.m., Strang body’s was flown out to Sopris Mountain Ranch near the trailhead and crews from Mountain Rescue then transported his body to Aspen Valley Hospital.
Strobl praised the efforts of the helicopter crew from St. Anthony’s as well as Mountain Rescue, as did Kirsten Newhard.
“The group would like to thank the sheriff’s department and Mountain Rescue Aspen and all involved for their timely, excellent and professional efforts,” Newhard wrote. “Lathrop Strang will be greatly missed. He certainly died doing what he loved.”
bgs@aspendailynews.com