A member of the US Alpine Ski Team from New Hampshire has been killed in an avalanche in Austria.
Ronnie Berlack of Franconia was one of two skiers who perished in the accident. Twenty-year-old Berlack was one of seven skiers named to the US ski team’s development squad last spring. He had finished in the top twenty in two events in last year’s US championships in Squaw Valley.
According to the Associated Press, Berlack and five other skiers were free-skiing off-trail in an area where officials had put out an avalanche alert. The group triggered an avalanche, and Berlack and another skier from Utah, Bryce Astle, were buried. Four others from the group were unhurt.
Berlack graduated Burke Mountain Academy in Vermont, a prep school that focuses on ski racing.