The first avalanche death of the winter in Washington is a 31-year-old Bellingham man who was backcountry skiing Tuesday on familiar terrain at White Pass.
It may sound cliché, but watching the videos he shot and posted to social media, it’s obvious that Adam Roberts died doing what made him feel most alive.
"The ability to be in the mountains is pretty unmatched for me," he said in a video produced by Western Washington University students in 2014.
He grew up in a mountain town near White Pass and Mount Rainier, and while he traveled thousands of miles to ski some of the most challenging, remote and untouched terrain there is, he always came back to White Pass.
Adam’s minimalist life—documented in the WWU video that shows the tiny house he built on his truck bed—allowed him to ski nearly every day.
His friends—through social media posts about the talented adventure-seeker—admit he lived dangerously, just as he did the day he died.
According to White Pass Ski Area officials, there was two feet of fresh powder in the out of bounds Goat Rocks, and Adam triggered an avalanche.
Search and rescuers found him in five to six feet of snow. Avalanches have now claimed 69 in Washington State over the last three decades.
Last week, King County Search and Rescue said the avalanche danger is high much earlier because of increased snowfall, especially around Stevens Pass, Mount Baker, and Mount Rainier.
Adam likely knew that, but his friends say he didn’t live on the edge—he jumped over it, and when he crossed the line—it was a boundary line.
“It’s kind of like playing with gravity and how steep you can go, moving your body down the mountain,” he concluded in the WWU video, referencing once again his love for the sport.
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