In his last video, U.S. freestyle skier Kyle Smaine was seen jetting down a powdery slope in central Japan, whooping and laughing. This, he said in an Instagram post, was what kept bringing him to Japan each winter—the “unbelievable snow quality.”
But just nine hours after the 31-year-old posted the body cam footage on Sunday, an avalanche knocked the champion halfpipe skier off his feet, killing him and another skier. Grant Granderson, a photographer in the group, said Smaine was “thrown 50 meters by the air blast and buried and killed” following the avalanche on the mountain in the Japanese prefecture Nagano.
“Yesterday was my absolute worst nightmare scenario,” Granderson wrote on Instagram on Monday. Authorities did not disclose the names of the killed skiers, but Granderson and Smaine’s wife revealed his passing on their Instagram pages. The second skier is yet to be publicly identified.
The accident took place amid heavy snow and a once-in-a-decade cold snap that has gripped Japan and parts of Asia since last Tuesday. An avalanche advisory for the Nagano region has been in place since Jan. 24, and on Jan. 27, two days before the fatal incident, Japan’s meteorological agency issued a heavy snow warning.
The agency said the weather conditions could cause a “surface avalanche,” when a fresh layer of snow slides over an old one. In his last Instagram post, Smaine noted “non-stop storms,” but it was unclear if he was aware of the avalanche advisory.
Smaine was one of at least five skiers from the U.S. and Austria who had been caught in Sunday’s avalanche on Mount Hakuba Norikura, a Nagano police spokesperson told Reuters.
Granderson, the photographer, inadvertently missed the deadly ski run because he was exhausted from 10 days of skiing and had returned to the base camp when Smaine and fellow skier Adam Ü went for another run. Ü was buried 1.5 meters deep for 25 minutes but escaped unharmed, Granderson said.
Smaine, a pro skier from South Lake Tahoe, won the halfpipe at the World Championships in 2015 and the World Cup three years later.
Tributes poured in after Smaine’s death was confirmed, including a mournful post from his wife, snowboarder Jenna Dramise.
“I know you had the best runs in your life out there in Japan and could never blame you for doing what you loved,” she wrote on her Instagram.
“I can’t wait to see you again. Tonight I hope to ride some pow or bikes with you in my dreams.”
Follow Hanako Montgomery on Twitter and Instagram.
The post ‘Absolute Worst Nightmare’: US Ski Champion Killed by Avalanche in Japan appeared first on VICE.
