He quickly found others and dug them out from under the snow.
(Leah Hogsten | The Salt Lake Tribune) Search and find rescue workers in Salt Lake County are waiting for the Utah Department of Public Safety’s heli team to arrive at Mill Creek Canyon on Sunday, February 7, 2021 to lay the bodies of four skiers who are in an avalanche.
Saturday’s avalanche that claimed the lives of four skiers in Utah abroad could have been even more deadly, but for the quick rescue work by one skier who clung to a tree to escape the slide that took away seven others.
The rubble completely buried six skiers and partially buried a seventh. The one skier who was not trapped began a search for his buried companions. Using a receiver, this skier, who has not been officially identified, quickly found signals transmitted by beacons carried by the buried skiers and trapped up to two caught under 3 to 5 feet of snow, according to the forward Drew Hardesty.
“He grabbed a tree and held it for the rest of his life while the avalanche washed him out and buried everyone,” Hardesty said. ‘And to see at the time how it happens and then to have the means to obtain the money [beacon] signals and do not one but two full and deep funerals and save two lives, is incredible. ”
Wilson Glade is in the upper reaches of Mill Creek Canyon below the gorge with the Big Cottonwood Canyon in the heart of the Wasatch Mountains’ ski country, known for its fine snow in alpine terrain that is easily accessible.
According to official reports, one group of five skiers entered Wilson Glade from Big Cottonwood while a group of three entered Mill Creek from below. According to the forecaster, Nikki Champion, both groups rose when the slide was ‘activated remotely’.
The skier, who managed not to get caught by the slide, toured in the group of five.
In most avalanches, a skier or snowmobile causes the slide while riding or skiing in the initial zone. That does not appear to be the case in Utah’s deadliest avalanche since 1992.
(Christopher Cherrington | The Salt Lake Tribune)
Saturday’s slide matches the features, with the exception of the slope angle. This avalanche was caused by a relatively tame slope of 31 degrees, probably proving that conditions were extremely unstable that day.
Due to the shallow snowpacks in Utah, the recent round of midwinter storms has led to extreme avalanche dangers as the new dense snow on the forecasters is ‘persistently weak layers’ ready to be released.
While the snowmobile slopes ski, skiers are taught in the countryside to keep enough distance from each other to limit the chance that more than one will be caught if the snow slope gives way. That way, if someone is completely buried, their companions can possibly save them.
This principle usually works while parties ski down a slope. It rarely happens that more than one skier gets caught in most slides in Utah, but Saturday’s massive avalanche occurred as these groups climbed, presumably into a single file via a ‘skin track’, according to Hardesty. As a result, all eight skiers were in the slide’s path at the same time even though the two groups were quite far apart. Two skiers in each group survived.
“Avalanches with more than one victim have been unusual while looking at our avalanche accidents since 1940. It does happen, but it’s rare,” Hardesty said. “I would say that by many standards and standards, this avalanche accident has stimulated the trend, because our average number of accidents over the last thirty years has seemed to decrease or slightly – despite the exploding use of the hinterland.”
Avalanches have claimed 21 lives in the U.S. this season, just the past 15 weeks, which has put winter on track to be one of the deadliest. And winter is barely half over.