A former member of the Ouray Mountain Rescue Team was found deceased in three feet of snow after an avalanche last week.
The wife of 57-year-old Donald Moden Jr. called the Ouray County Sheriff’s Office after she located her husband’s body under three feet of snow using a transceiver.
The body was found on Jan. 7 when the woman went looking for Moden who disappeared while on a skiing trip near Red Mountain Pass.
Authorities said Moden was wearing an avalanche airbag backpack and a rescue transceiver at the time of his death.
The deceased was an experienced skier. He was likely skiing downhill, on his seventh lap when the avalanche buried him. It is believed he had been under snow for more than four hours.
“He had skied on Red Mountain Pass for 16 years and knew the terrain on Red Number 3 well,” the Colorado Avalanche Information Center said.
“He chose his terrain as appropriate for the day based on his previous experience of the slope and the snowpack.”
