Accident Summary:
Two snowshoers were reported as overdue when they failed to return from a walk up Mineral Fork on Saturday, December 11th. Victim are Bruce Quint, 59, and Melvin Dennis, 37, both from Salt Lake City.
Rescue Summary:
Saturday night, two skiers from Salt Lake Country Search and Rescue followed snowshoe tracks to the base of a large headwall at the upper end of Mineral Fork where the tracks disappear under fresh avalanche debris and did not appear again on the other side. The two snowshoers were the first people to travel up Mineral Fork after the large storm, which ended two days earlier. Searchers could find no beacon signals in the debris, nor visual clues. Neither of the victims wore beacons. In consultation with several avalanche experts, including one who flew over the area in a helicopter that night, they decided that conditions were too dangerous to bring in a larger team of searchers that night.
On Sunday morning personnel from Wasatch Powderbird Guides controlled the area with explosives, which triggered widespread avalanches in remainder of the canyon as well as hang fire above the accident site. They flew teams of rescuers to the site including Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Search and Rescue, Wasatch Backcountry Rescue, a volunteer group of ski area personnel operating under the Salt Lake County Sheriff. The helicopter was from Utah Highway Patrol. They searched the area using trained avalanche rescue dogs and probed areas where the dogs indicated interest. At 11:30, they found Melvin Dennis buried about four feet deep and more-or-less in line with the tracks which entered the debris. They found the second victim Bruce Quint, on Monday, December 13, 2004 around 10:00 am about 25 yards uphill from the first victim and buried over eight feet deep. Both victims appeared to have been simply pushed over by the debris and buried without being tumbled and were probably buried fairly near their initial positions.
Avalanche Data:
The avalanche was a very large, hard-slab avalanche, which fractured out the lower third of the northeast-facing slope hanging above them. As near as we can tell, it fractured about 2-3 feet deep, 400 feet wide and descended 800 vertical feet. The dimensions of the original avalanche was hard to determine precicely because the area was controlled by helicopter-delivered explosives before rescuers could safely go into the area. Subsequent control avalanched all the remaining snow above the fracture line as well as much most of the adjacent avalanche paths. The debris was about 300 feet wide and averaged 6 feet deep, but is much deeper in places. The elevation of the upper fracture was around 9,000’ and the toe of the debris was 8,200’. The slab was composed of dense, new snow and wind-blown snow mostly deposited December 8-9. The weak layer was an extremely weak layer of near-surface faceted snow and surface hoar formed during three weeks of clear weather in November and early December. My examination of the snowpack in the area showed that the snow was still quite unstable and I could barely isolate a column in several different snow pit tests (CTE 2, Q1) which means compression test easy with a score of 2 out of 30 with a clean, easy shear. There is no way to know whether the snowshoers triggered the avalanche, but conditions were certainly conducive as they were on gentle a gentle slope directly at the base of the large, steep slope above, which avalanched.
Weather History:
Northern Utah experienced a huge snow storm with very strong winds on December 8th and 9th with snow lingering into the morning of the 10th. This overloaded the buried weak layers and combined with a rapid temperature rise produced widespread avalanche activity during the storm. An avalanche warning was in effect for the December 8-10th but was allowed to expire at midnight before the accident. The danger rating was rated as HIGH on the day before the accident and was downgraded to CONSIDERABLE to HIGH on the day of the accident. Our forecast for the day included a very strongly worded warning for backcountry travelers to stay off of and out from underneath any slope steeper than about 30 degrees.
Avalanche Advisory: December 11, 2004
PHOTOS: See Photos.
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