ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Three men died Tuesday after being buried by a large avalanche while on a guided heli-skiing trip in the Chugach Mountains near Girdwood.

The avalanche occurred around 3:30 p.m. near the West Fork of Twentymile River, Alaska State Troopers said in an update Wednesday. The slide area is a mountain cirque about 9 miles northeast of Girdwood, in backcountry terrain accessible by air.

The incident appears to be the first fatal avalanche this winter in Alaska and the country’s deadliest since an avalanche in Washington’s Cascade Mountains killed three climbers in 2023.

Tuesday’s slide measured more than a half-mile long with a debris pile estimated to be 40 to 100 feet deep, authorities said.

The men, all from out of state, were clients of Girdwood-based Chugach Powder Guides, according to a company spokesperson. The run they skied was part of the company’s regular list, and a guide accompanied them, she said.

Witnesses saw all three deploy their avalanche air bags as the slide began, spokesperson Tracey Knutson said.

The avalanche started at about 3,500 feet altitude and ended at about 700 feet, Knutson said.

A fourth person in the group was not caught by the slide and was later extricated safely, she said, adding that others who were on the same trip but skiing different runs also needed to be flown out.

Three guides “were on scene immediately initiating rescue response and an emergency alert,” Knutson said. They picked up three signals from the men’s emergency beacons below, she said, the lowest at nearly 45 feet deep.

Numerous helicopters and guides ended the search around 4:30 p.m. after determining “that the victims were clearly unrecoverable” with available resources and that conditions posed a rescuer safety risk, she said.

Troopers said they plan to assess the area to see if recovery operations can be conducted safely.

U.S. Forest Service staff notified troopers about the avalanche at 5:10 p.m. Tuesday, according to troopers spokesman Austin McDaniel. The agency was not able to overfly the area due to limited daylight, he said.

“If weather and conditions allow for it, troopers plan to assess avalanche conditions from the air and determine recovery options with individuals that have experience making avalanche recoveries,” McDaniel said Wednesday in an email.

Knutson said Chugach Powder Guides is working with various agencies on extrication options but the terrain and snow depth are making the process challenging.

The company follows strict safety protocols, she said, including training for guides as well as clients.

Chugach Powder Guides has offered day heli-ski trips for 25 years according to the company’s website.

The company has suspended operations at least through Thursday.

The Chugach National Forest Avalanche Information Center — which includes the Girdwood and Portage areas in its broader Turnagain Pass zone for avalanche forecasting — in recent days has described a weak layer of snow buried up to 2 feet deep that was “tricky to assess” and that posed a risk to backcountry recreators across the region.

On Tuesday morning, the center said avalanche danger was “considerable” at mid- and upper elevations, indicating that natural slides were possible, and human-triggered avalanches likely.

Many human-triggered avalanches have been reported on the weak layer above 1,500 feet, the center said Wednesday.

Avalanche danger was expected to rise Wednesday afternoon due to snow and strong winds that were in the forecast, the center said. “The amount of recent avalanches, especially ones being triggered remotely is telling us that it is that the snowpack is already touchy,” the center said.

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