2 Skiers Killed in Late Colorado Avalanches

It's been a deadly few days for snow sports in Colorado, with two people dead in separate late-winter avalanches. The AP notes that recent storms have raised the risks of avalanches and takes a look at the incidents:

• A skier was killed Sunday in a large avalanche in the Maroon Bowl area outside the Aspen Highlands resort near Aspen, the Pitkin County Sheriff's Office said. Two fellow skiers escaped. Further details were scant.

• Skier Joel Shute died in an avalanche near Marble that rumbled 2,400 feet down a mountainside on Friday evening. A skier and a snowboarder with him survived; the latter managed to hike out to get rescuers to airlift the injured skier. Shute's body was recovered Saturday, and his family says he was well aware of the dangers. "Skiing was Joel's life," brother Aaron Shute told KDVR. "It was his passion and what he wanted to do with his life."

(More avalanche stories.)