On this day, It was around noon when Jeff Hardin and his 15 year old son got to the top of the West Bowl of Silver Fork. They saw a fresh avalanche in the East Bowl and descended to the West Bowl flats to traverse over to the East Bowl. They soon heard screams for help. Enroute to the accident site, they came across another skier Maria Saldutti whose partner Will Robbins was already headed for the debris pile. It should be noted that Jeff is an ER physician; Will is a wildland firefighter and also an EMT. Will initially arrived at the injured client, performed a rapid assessment and then continued up to find Quino. Jeff soon arrived at the client’s position, similarly ruled out any immediate life threatening injuries, and ascended the debris to find Will and Quino. Quino was found pulseless and with significant massive chest trauma. Still, the two performed CPR for an estimated 30 minutes. At this time, a Powderbird helicopter landed with Powderbird guides and then members of Alta and Snowbird ski patrol, who immediately provided care and packaging to the client. A Utah Department of Public Safety helicopter hoisted the client to the Incident Command Post where he was soon transferred to Intermountain Health Care to attend to his broken leg. Members of Salt Lake County Search and Rescue packaged Quino to be transported to the ICP; however, deteriorating weather conditions ceased the air operations and Quino was recovered the following day.

(Rescue photo S.Chovan, WBR pic)

This avalanche occurred on a west-facing slope named East Bowl in upper Silver Fork, in Big Cottonwood Canyon, southeast of Salt Lake City, UT. The crown face was between 10,200' and 10,300' and the toe of the debris was approximately 9,500 feet in elevation. Slope angles in the starting zone ranged from 35 degrees to 40 degrees in steepness. The avalanche ran approximately 800 feet in elevation.

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On the day after the accident, Utah Avalanche Center forecasters Dave Kelly and Drew Hardesty went toward the accident site to better understand the nature of the event. There was universal agreement, however, that conditions remained too dangerous to access the fracture line of the avalanche and therefore avalanche information is only conjecture based upon slope and snowpack history. Based upon zoomed-in photos from both the rescuers and the drone, it is estimated that the soft slab avalanche was roughly 2’ deep. This potentially matches the layering of the faceted grains buried on February 1st and it could also match a weakness of graupel from the Friday February 7th storm. It is also conjectured that this slope had avalanched previously on December 29th, leaving a layer of weak faceted snow on the bed surface. All three weak layers had been active prior to the accident.

(photo of crown; Hardin)

Based upon the nature of the snowpack with its attendant persistent weak layers, it is impossible to know exactly who triggered the avalanche.

On the day of the accident, the Utah Avalanche Center had rated the avalanche danger as CONSIDERABLE (link to forecast). The bottom line read as follows “The avalanche danger is CONSIDERABLE on all mid and upper-elevation steep slopes for slab avalanches. Here, avalanches can fail within the new snow or at the old/new snow interface. On northerly facing terrain, these avalanches could step down into buried weak layers of faceted snow, making them more dangerous. Human-triggered avalanches 1 to 3 feet deep are likely today.”