Array
Kyle Smaine, a U.S. professional skier who was the halfpipe gold medalist in the 2015 world championships, died Sunday in an avalanche in Japan, according to his wife and a fellow skier who was also caught in the snow.
Smaine, 31, was in Nagano over the weekend for a marketing trip for Ikon Pass and Nagano Tourism when the avalanche took place on Mount Hakuba Norikura, according to a blog post by the skiing news site Mountain Gazette.
Pro skier and Mountain Gazette correspondent Adam Ü was also at the resort along with Mountain Gazette photographer Grant Gunderson, who was the photographer on the marketing trip, according to the site.
Ü told the Mountain Gazette that the three of them were going out to ski during the last day of their trip on Sunday. « We had no camera gear with us. We were going out for fun, » he told the site.
Gunderson went back to the resort when Ü and Smaine went for a second lap and were joined by a group of Austrian skiers.
