JERICHO, Vt. – Vermont National Guard officials say the avalanche that injured six soldiers hit while the slope was being checked for safety.

Lt. Col. Matthew Brown, the head of the Army’s Mountain Warfare School in Jericho, Vermont, said Friday that two of the soldiers remain hospitalized recovering from injuries sustained in the Wednesday avalanche on a slope in Smugglers Notch.

Vermont National Guard Lt. Col. Matthew Brown speaks Friday in Jericho, Vermont, about the avalanche that injured six soldiers when it hit while the slope was being checked for safety Wednesday. The soldiers were carried about 900 feet down the mountain after the snow on the slope gave way. Associated Press/Wilson Ring

Vermont National Guard soldiers on a training exercise emerge from a closed section on Vermont 108 in Cambridge, Vermont, just below Smuggers Notch on Wednesday night after six soldiers were swept about 900 feet by an avalanche. Ryan Mercer/The Burlington Free Press via Associated Press

He wouldn’t describe the injuries, but said no one was buried under the snow.

The soldiers were carried about 900 feet down the mountain after the snow on the slope gave way.

The Vermont National Guard has been conducting winter training in the notch since the early 1990s and no one could remember another avalanche.

Heavy snows have fallen throughout much of the region in recent weeks.