A back­coun­try ski­er was killed in an avalanche Sat­ur­day in an area near Berthoud Pass, accord­ing to Grand Coun­ty Search and Rescue.

The inci­dent hap­pened around 3 p.m. in the First Creek Drainage of Berthoud Pass. Known local­ly as Chim­ney Chute, the area is a steep, nar­row, north­east-fac­ing below-tree­line slope.

The solo ski­er was report­ed over­due by fam­i­ly mem­bers who were able to give the res­cue team a spe­cif­ic last-seen point, accord­ing to a state­ment from Grand Coun­ty Search and Rescue.

The searchers found a recent avalanche and searched the area, first find­ing a pair of ski gog­gles and then find­ing the miss­ing ski­er by using an avalanche probe. He was com­plete­ly buried and did not sur­vive, accord­ing to the res­cue team and Col­orado Avalanche Infor­ma­tion Center.

The ski­er was not wear­ing an avalanche trans­ceiv­er, the res­cue team said.

The ski­er is the fourth per­son to die in Col­orado avalanch­es in the last two weeks, accord­ing to the CAIC — near­ing the total six peo­ple killed in the entire 2019–2020 sea­son, from Novem­ber through May.

On Dec. 18, a back­coun­try ski­er was killed in an avalanche near Crest­ed Butte, and two back­coun­try skiers were killed the next day in an avalanche near Silverton.

Colorado’s back­coun­try has seen increased use this year because of nov­el coro­n­avirus pre­cau­tions and restric­tions at ski resorts. Back­coun­try out­fit­ters saw a huge spike in demand this spring, and this fall expect­ed back­coun­try gear to sell out quick­ly. Some wor­ried that the new vis­i­tors to the back­coun­try would be inex­pe­ri­enced an unpre­pared to deal with avalanche danger.

The region has also seen dan­ger­ous avalanche con­di­tions this month. On Sun­day, the CAIC rat­ed the avalanche dan­ger as con­sid­er­able across much of the east­ern moun­tain ranges, and as mod­er­ate in areas far­ther west.