Beware in the backcountry this weekend: Avalanche conditions are considered to be "unusual" and "very dangerous" as winter storms move across the mountains, officials said Friday.
February 12, 2021
2021 has brought a deadly avalanche season. “We’re only halfway through the season and we’re 3/4 of the way to the number of fatalities we’d see in a typical year. The dangerous, record-breaking year keeps avalanche forecasters up at night,” one expert said.
The Wasatch Backcountry Rescue in Utah took this photo of the area where 4 people were killed in an avalanche on February 6, 2021. Note the area near the top where the snow has broken away and slid down the slope. Image via Utah Avalanche Center.
The United States had its deadliest week for avalanches in more than a century between January 30 and February 6, 2021. With 15 deaths during that period, the week is now on record as the worst week for avalanche deaths in the U.S. since March 1, 1910, when 96 people died in the Stevens Pass avalanche in the state of Washington after two trains were swept off their tracks. At this writing, a total of 22 people have died in U.S. avalanches so far during the
A weak base layer of snow, combined with an increased interest in backcountry skiing, has likely contributed to one of the deadliest weeks for avalanches.
A weak base layer of snow, combined with an increased interest in backcountry skiing, has likely contributed to one of the deadliest weeks for avalanches.
Updated: 1:31 PM PST, February 08, 2021
Fourteen people have died in the U.S. in avalanches in just the last week, the most in any seven-day period in more than a century, CBS News reported.
A massive avalanche in Utah’s Millcreek Canyon killed four skiers and left four scrambling for help Saturday, officials said. The Unified Police Department identified the four victims who did not survive the incident as Sarah Moughamian, 29, Louis Holian, 26, Stephanie Hopkins, 26, and Thomas Louis Steinbrecher, 23.
“We had two groups of individuals one group from Big Cottonwood, one group from Millcreek,” Wayne Bassham, commander for Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Search and Rescue, told KSL TV. “Apparently, they did not know each other; they just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”