The happiest avalanche story of the winter, in fact one of the happiest avalanche stories on record, occurred on January 25th.
It was a miracle, something which defies all the odds and makes a mockery of statistics. Two snowshoers were descending a deep, narrow gully in Buttler Fork of Big Cottonwood Canyon. Neither of them wore beacons and neither had much avalanche training. Camile Coyle had noticed several very shallow, very soft avalanches which had started to occur because of heavy snowfall on top of a thin ice crust. She remarked to her niece about the avalanches and her niece remembered hearing that if buried you should make an air pocket in front of your mouth. And lucky she passed on that advice because a couple minutes later Camile, who was traveling out front, was buried in an avalanche six feet deeр. Her niece searched the small debris pile but without a beacon had no chance of finding her. A few minutes later, a group of skiers from Seattle happened upon the scene, assembled their ski pole probes and began to probe.
But Camile was buried too deeply for their probes to reach. Finally, and luckily, UAFCforecaster Carol Ciliberti also happened upon the scene. She was descending Butler Fork while doing field work. Carol's heart sank when she interviewed the witnesses and learned that Camile had been buried over an hour at that point and that their probes were not long enough.
Carol always carries a collapsible probe as did her other two partners that day UAFC Intern Noah Maze and Carol's friend, Nancy King. They assembled their probes, Carol organized everyone into a probe line and they quickly located Camile. By the time they had dug the six feet to her head, hour and three quarters had passed. Carol was astounded to see her moving and alive when they reached her. In fact, she was well enough to walk out on her own.
The statistics say that half of all completely buried avalanche victims are dead in the first 20-30 minutes. Only 12 percent are still alive after 45 minutes and an insignificant number are still alive after two hours. Almost all of the people who survive more than an hour under the snow are buried either very shallowly or are protected by a building or a car. It's nearly unheard of to survive a six foot burial, and just as unlikely to survive for nearly two hours. Combining these two together puts this case solidly into the statistical stratosphere. She was lucky because the avalanche descended only about 60 feet and was composed of very soft new snow. It didn't travel far enough to grind up the snow or to heat it up. So the debris was uncharacteristically soft and fluffy.
Although she couldn't move her arms, Camile was able to wiggle around and form an air space around her head and body which undoubtedly saved her life.
