Brent Benson

Salt Lake » Bonanza Flats » Tri-county Peak

Tri-County Peak

9,900'

Southeast

Snowmobiler

Remotely Triggered

Hard Slab

Persistent Weak Layer

Facets

3'

300'

Unknown

2

I watched two snowmobilers proceed down the road (Guardsman's) towards Park City. I noticed the first 100 ft of the road heading towards Park City had slid. The slide was small but a 18inch crown. I thought to myself that's not a good idea almost anytime. Today it was even worst because the snow above and further down hadn't slid. There's also a huge cornice line that parallels the road about 300 vert above. I took a quick lap back down the road towards BCC. I returned about 10 mins later, and looked down the slope from the top of the pass and saw about 8 snowmobiles on a debris pile. I quickly went down there and they said they came across the debris pile. They were all properly equipped and were doing a beacon scan. They found no signals and did a visual check of the surface. They figured it was just a natural slide. I told them I saw some snowmobilers up on the road about 15 mins ago. We all figure they were ok and proceeded our separate ways. I came back about 45 minutes later and met a small group of people on the pass. They told me that two snowmobilers triggered the slide from the road. It started on the ridge line just below the cornice. They were okay and their snowmobiles were knock off the road? I met the party that trigger it and they said they were a group of seven? I didn't really talk to them but they said they were going to report the incident to the Avalanche center. From what I could see they looked inexperience and didn't seem to have any avie gear. They were all okay and had all their snowmobiles. The slide was about 100 yards wide and ran from the top of the ridge ( under the cornice) all the way to the gully below. It could have been much wider but it was hard to see that far with the blowing snow and fog.