Keystone, CO – Skier deaths seem to be reported this winter with increasing frequency around the U.S., and no doubt the leaner than normal snow pack thus far this season has contributed to some of them. Three have died just this week in Colorado alone with the latest at Keystone Resort, where a 54-year-old man died on Wednesday of a broken neck.

The body Vesslin Vlassev, of Westminster, Colo., was found by a passing skier alongside the intermediate Jacques St. James trail on Dercum Mountain around 11:30 a.m. The skier who discovered Vlassev notified Keystone’s ski patrol.

Summit County Coroner Joanne Richardson said on Friday that preliminary autopsy results show that Vesslin Vlassev died of a fractured neck. Further details are unknown at this time.

The other two deaths in Colorado this week resulted from in-bounds avalanches, one at Vail Mountain where a 13-year-old skier was buried in a slide in a closed area of Prima Cornice, and the other in the trees at Winter Park. The snow pack across the West continues to exhibit instability following many weeks of clear, dry weather.