BIG COTTONWOOD CANYON, Utah, Jan. 29, 2018 (Gephardt Daily) — Three backcountry skiers in or near an avalanche in Big Cottonwood Canyon’s Silver Fork Canyon have more than 60 years of experience, officials said.
The Utah Avalanche Center said in a news release the incident is a warning to other skiers to take particular care given the conditions this winter.
“It’s very tricky to accurately assess stability,” the news release said. “This was their sixth run in the area. Don’t trust the snowpack we have this year because there are a lot of booby traps out there.”
A 52-year-old man was partially buried, and suffered a head injury when the avalanche occurred in the Upper Meadow Chutes area at about 3 p.m., according to information shared on Twitter by the Unified Police Department. That skier was caught up in the slide and carried 600 feet.
A medical helicopter responded to the area to transport the seriously injured skier to the medical clinic at Solitude Mountain Resort.
The other two skiers were not caught in the path of the avalanche.
The follow-up news release from UAC said a party of two skiers ran into a mutual friend that was traveling solo, and they decided to ski as a group of three. When the avalanche occurred, they had already skied El Rollo once, and the Football Field twice, in addition to other runs.
“None of them had skied the actual section that avalanched,” the news release said. “They skied just to the south of the area that avalanched. Skier one and skier two descended and stopped in the runout zone of the area that subsequently avalanched. The avalanche released while Skier three was descending, and first noticed it, and yelled ‘avalanche!’ Skier one heard the warning, and quickly moved approximately 10 feet to the north, and avoided being caught. Skier two, who was taking a photo, was not able to move out of the way and was caught by the descending avalanche. He was carried 600 vertical feet.”
The total distance the avalanche ran was a 1,000 vertical feet down.
The avalanche was remotely triggered which means nobody was on the part of the slope that actually avalanched.
“At the time, the severity of the avalanche and the consequential terrain below led them to think that skier two must have been killed,” the news release said. “Skier one and skier three pulled out their beacons and started searching below. As skier three descended through a steep 45 to 50 degree slope with bent-over aspens, he yelled to skier two, who responded. Skier two was injured severely enough that they could not self evacuate and called for help.”
The first people to arrive on scene were Solitude ski patrollers operating under Wasatch Backcountry Rescue. They hiked into Silver Fork on foot.
A LifeFlight Helicopter landed on the avalanche debris and delivered the injured skier to the medical clinic at Solitude where he was transferred to an ambulance and driven to a hospital. The other two men skied out from the scene.
