A 54-year-old man who was killed in an avalanche in the mountains east of Salt Lake City on New Year’s Eve unintentionally triggered the slide, according to a preliminary report from the Utah Avalanche Center.
The man had been splitboarding alone in the Silver Fork area of Big Cottonwood Canyon when the avalanche was triggered, the report said. The slide, which was 2 feet deep and 300 feet wide, presumably happened Tuesday morning, although the exact timing is unclear because the man was traveling alone, the report said.
According to a statement issued earlier by the avalanche center, a skier noticed the avalanche with one track leading into the fresh debris and reported it to Alta Central, the public safety agency for the town of Alta. A team of multiple agencies went to the scene and found the man buried beneath approximately 20 feet of snow. He’d been carrying an avalanche transceiver, the statement said.
At the time, the mountains of northern Utah had been under an avalanche warning issued by the Utah Avalanche Center. The avalanche danger was rated as “high” due to a strong winter storm that had brought heavy snowfall and strong winds, the statement said.
On Friday, avalanche center forecasters had visited the site on a routine field day and saw cracking and collapsing snow, as well as a “poor snowpack structure,” according to a report of their observations.
Second fatality in days
The snowboarder’s death on Tuesday marked the second avalanche fatality in Utah this winter, the statement said.
On Saturday, a 38-year-old man from Quebec traveling solo was also killed in an avalanche, which happened in Porter Fork in Mill Creek Canyon, according to another statement from the avalanche center.
Salt Lake County Search and Rescue said in a statement on Facebook that the man’s black lab had been found Saturday night above the Porter Fork road. The man’s name and contact information was found on the dog’s microchip, and that information matched reports of an overdue individual in Mill Creek Canyon, the statement said. The man’s car was found at the Porter Fork trailhead.
On Sunday night, a rescue helicopter started to search for the man but couldn’t make it far into Porter Fork due to dangerous conditions, the statement said.
On Monday morning, teams from the Utah Avalanche Center and Salt Lake County Search and Rescue started a search for the man, but were hindered by the high avalanche danger, the statement said.
Later on Monday, a “good Samaritan” in the area performed a beacon search on an avalanche debris pile and located the man, buried about 3 feet deep, the statement continued.
The man’s body was retrieved by Salt Lake County Search and Rescue and a helicopter on Tuesday afternoon, the statement said.
Avalanche danger persists
The mountains near Salt Lake City remained under a “considerable” avalanche danger Wednesday, according to a forecast from the avalanche center, which said people were “likely” to trigger a deadly slide in steep terrain facing the west, north, east and southeast. Avalanches could be triggered from a distance or from below, the forecast said.
“If you are exiting a ski area boundary, you are stepping into very dangerous terrain,” the forecast said.
Salt Lake County Search and Rescue said in its statement that while “it is never our goal to criticize someone involved in an accident, this should serve as a stark reminder to how unstable the snowpack is in the Wasatch right now, and how many resources, time, and risk to personal [safety] a backcountry winter operation in these conditions requires.”
“We have had two avalanche deaths in the last three days,” the statement continued. “Both patients were traveling solo, in high-hazard terrain. Now is the time to stick to low-angle terrain, read the avalanche forecast, have a partner, tell someone where you are going and when you will be back, and bring rescue gear.”
The National Weather Service says a winter storm will bring accumulating snow to the mountains of northern Utah into Thursday morning. Snow accumulations will likely range from 6 to 12 inches with higher amounts in the Bear River Range and upper Cottonwoods.