AP Panther Fan
02-17-2005, 01:06 PM
Man dies while making extreme skiing film
Wednesday, February 16, 2005 Posted: 7:54 PM EST (0054 GMT)
STOWE, Vermont (AP) -- A lifelong skier was killed when an avalanche carried him off a mountain while he and three friends were making a film about extreme skiing.
Alec Stall, 23, was being filmed doing sweeping turns down a steep chute just before the accident Monday on Mount Mansfield.
His friends believe Stall may have caught a ski tip in a crust of snow and fell 30 feet from a cliff edge. Above him, a slab of snow broke loose and created a river of snow that swept Stall off the mountain.
"I saw this huge rush of snow coming down in a cloud," said colleague Chris James. "The cloud lasted 3 or 4 seconds, and he was gone."
Stall was later found dead of injuries suffered in the fall. No one else was hurt.
The four men worked for Burlington-based Meathead Films, a company they started while attending the University of Vermont.
"The draw is (that) I like to get scared," Stall once told an interviewer. "It's about taking the sport to a new level -- about skiing where people wouldn't have thought possible 10 years ago."
Wednesday, February 16, 2005 Posted: 7:54 PM EST (0054 GMT)
STOWE, Vermont (AP) -- A lifelong skier was killed when an avalanche carried him off a mountain while he and three friends were making a film about extreme skiing.
Alec Stall, 23, was being filmed doing sweeping turns down a steep chute just before the accident Monday on Mount Mansfield.
His friends believe Stall may have caught a ski tip in a crust of snow and fell 30 feet from a cliff edge. Above him, a slab of snow broke loose and created a river of snow that swept Stall off the mountain.
"I saw this huge rush of snow coming down in a cloud," said colleague Chris James. "The cloud lasted 3 or 4 seconds, and he was gone."
Stall was later found dead of injuries suffered in the fall. No one else was hurt.
The four men worked for Burlington-based Meathead Films, a company they started while attending the University of Vermont.
"The draw is (that) I like to get scared," Stall once told an interviewer. "It's about taking the sport to a new level -- about skiing where people wouldn't have thought possible 10 years ago."