An Olympia woman died skiing at White Pass Ski Area Saturday after striking a tree.
Lewis County Coroner Warren McLeod said an autopsy for the victim, Cathy L. Carlson, 60, showed she died of blunt force trauma to the head and chest. The death was ruled an accident.
The autopsy was performed Monday. Lewis County Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy Stacy Brown said deputies were dispatched to the lodge at White Pass at about 11:30 a.m. Saturday.
An off-duty ski patrol member witnessed the accident and told deputies the woman went over a bump on the Cool Air run in a new expansion area and started falling backward. She crashed into a tree, hitting her chest and upper body.
She was contacted immediately, but showed no signs of life, and efforts to revive her were unsuccessful. She was pronounced deceased while in transit to the lodge aid station.
According to The Olympian, a date for a funeral hasn’t been set yet, partly because her husband, Tris Carlson, was awaiting the results of a Lewis County coroner autopsy. His daughter and sister were working on funeral arrangements, he said.
Carlson was remembered Monday as a longtime and active Rotarian, as well as a longtime and avid skier. She also had been the chief financial officer at Seattle Shellfish, an Olympia-based company, since the late 1990s, her husband said. Carlson said the two of them had recently returned from a three-week skiing trip in Switzerland.
“She loved life and lived for skiing,” said Leslie Demich, a fellow Rotarian who knew Cathy Carlson for about 12 years.
Demich and South Puget Sound Rotary President Paul Randall said members of the service club plan to gather Friday, a day before its annual auction, to grieve.
Randall said Carlson had served on every committee and was a past president. “I don’t want to say she was the glue that held the club together, but she was darn close,” he said.
“It’s a real blow,” he said. “She is going to be really, really missed.
Carlson is survived by her husband, a son, a daughter and two grandchildren.
