Robson Gmoser - Mountain Guide

Robson Gmoser, 45, was killed in an avalanche March 10, near Sorcerer Lodge, a fly-in ski cabin above Golden, B.C.

The son of climbing guide and heliski pioneer Hans Gmoser, Robson was a well-known and widely-respected mountain guide in his own right. With his wife Olivia Sofer he owned and operated Wild Trips Adventures; with business partner Roger Laurilla the couple owned and operated Battle Abbey, a mountain lodge in the Selkirks.

Robson was buried in a slab avalanche he triggered while skiing back to the lodge after a late-afternoon route-scouting climb. He had earlier dropped the group he was guiding at the lodge, and was on the slope alone, watched only by a guide-in-training.

Robson is survived by his mother, Margaret MacGougan Gmoser; wife Olivia and three-year-old son Max; and brother Conrad and family. Hans Gmoser, founder of Canadian Mountain Holidays, died after a bicycling accident in 2006.