You could get an idea of how much snow there was in the face from number one Leo Slemett's run. During his turns, Leo often whirled up the snow far above his head. Julian Lopez also pulled a few sprays into the slopes below the Quellspitze until he fell after a jump and lost a ski. One of the assistants on the slope immediately rushed to his aid to find the lost ski. As Julien began to climb up to the ski in the deep snow, an avalanche broke loose and took Julien with it. He deployed his airbag, was not buried and was able to ski down to the valley himself. According to the organizer's press release, he escaped with minor bruises. The organizer states that the avalanche was 50cm high, 40m wide and 100m long. If you look at the pictures of the slope, these values seem very low. On the day of the accident, avalanche warning level 3 prevailed in this area and the Tyrolean avalanche warning service had pointed out in its blog in the morning that fresh drift snow is very easy to disturb (with reference to good blasting successes on the Arlberg, a few kilometers from Kappl as the crow flies). According to the organizers, safety was checked and blasting was carried out the day before directly next to the later crack.
In our forum you will find the press release of the organizer as well as a link to a series of pictures of the avalanche. There is also a link to an interview with Fabian Lentsch about the contest day in Kappl.
When and where the second stop of the Freerdie World Tour 2015 for men and women snowboarders and men skiers will take place had not yet been decided at the time of writing this article. In any case, the riders will be pushing to catch up on the contest, as the tickets for the fourth stop in Alaska are already awarded after 3 stops and no one will probably want to miss out on that.
The video from last year's FWT tour stop in Kappl gives you an impression of the terrain:
