The four people who died at Mill Creek Canyon on Saturday have been identified; they were all in their twenties.
(Leah Hogsten | The Salt Lake Tribune) Search and rescue members in Salt Lake County watch a Utah Department of Public Safety helicopter land, carrying the belongings and body of one of four people died in an avalanche in Mill Creek Canyon on Sunday, February. 7, 2021.
Editor’s note • This story contains sensitive photographs of Sunday’s recovery of the four skiers killed in Saturday’s avalanche.
The deadly avalanche that swept eight skiers down a Utah mountain on Saturday occurred against a backdrop that rose over the past day, coinciding with the dangerous avalanche conditions created by the winter snowpack shallower in years.
On Sunday, the Unified Police Department identified the four skiers who died at the top of Mill Creek Canyon, just outside Salt Lake City, in an area called Wilson Glade. They were members of two separate groups that were on the same slope when the avalanche was released.
Six skiers were completely buried. Two were able to extract themselves and search for their companions using transceivers that travelers from outside the country carry in avalanche terrain, according to the report released by the Utah Avalanche Center. Two of the buried skiers were recovered alive, while four were not found in time. The skiers who died are:
• Sarah Moughamian, 29, of Sandy.
• Louis Holian, 26, of Salt Lake City.
• Stephanie Hopkins, 26, of Salt Lake City.
• Thomas Louis Steinbrecher, 23, of Salt Lake City.
The four survivors, all men aged 23 to 38, were rescued from the mountain by LifeFlight helicopters and crews. None suffered life-threatening injuries and were not hospitalized.
Due to unstable snow conditions, efforts to recover the four dead skiers were halted on Saturday and resumed early Sunday. In the afternoon, the bodies of the victims had been removed from the mountain.
Wilson Glade is adjacent to Alexander Basin, a precipitated bowl under the Mill Creek divide with Big Cottonwood Canyon, under the shadows of Wilson Peak and Gobblers Knob. The eight skiers were on the northeast face of Wilson in separate groups, a group of five members entering from Big Cottonwood Canyon and a group of three members entering below, according to officials.
Rescue officials “checked [the area] that [Sunday] in the morning to see if they needed to control avalanches, ”said the unified police sergeant. Melody Cutler. “They decided not to, but the rescuers are there now. Up there it’s pretty unstable. So they try to be as accurate as possible. “
The Unified Police Department transported people and equipment to the avalanche site by helicopter loaned to the Utah Department of Public Safety.
(Leah Hogsten | The Salt Lake Tribune) Utah Department of Homeland Security tactical flight operator Nick Napierski, right, on Sunday helps Salt Lake County search and rescue members remove a net carrying personal belongings and the body of one of the four people who died. Saturday in an avalanche in Mill Creek Canyon.
Flights were arranged from the parking area where Mill Creek Canyon Road is closed for the winter. After leaving the search crew, the pilot exited the cannon to refuel and returned to the crash site around noon to transport the victims to the area of stay, where a forensic doctor was waiting.
It is not yet known whether the four skiers died from traumatic injuries or suffocation; the slide dragged two of them through areas with trees, Cutler said.
Officials closed the canyon, popular with Nordic skiers and hikers this time of year, in the scene area, while the entire canyon under the Terraces remained open on Sunday.
The eight skiers were well prepared and had the necessary equipment for the conditions, the Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Office said. “Our heart goes out to the loved ones of the skiers lost in Saturday’s avalanche,” said Sheriff Rosie Rivera.
Saturday’s tragedy was a testament not only to this winter’s unstable snowpack, but potentially also to the crowding at the bottom of Wasatch, where the magnificent snow and ski terrain is easily accessed from mountain roads. plows and ski areas. In recent years, Utah avalanche forecasts have warned that a multidisciplinary accident could occur, given the growing number of parties that revolve close to each other.
The pandemic appears to be pushing even more people looking for dust to the bottom of Wasatch, thanks in part to the capacity limits that ski areas have implemented to reduce the risk of coronavirus transmission. Meanwhile, avalanche conditions have been especially dangerous due to low snowfall this winter, according to avalanche forecast Craig Gordon.
“It’s completely counterintuitive to think that this winter has barely snowed, even though we see extremely dangerous avalanche conditions,” Gordon said. “In a shallow snow backpack, in particular, the layers weaken, sweeten, and become an unstable foundation.”
Thin backpacks, such as those recorded this winter in the mountains of Utah, tend to lose their cohesion because moisture migrates more quickly through the snowpack.
“The instability lasts for long periods of time and is now buried and at the bottom of our snow backpack,” Gordon said. “Every time we load it with new snow or wind, it reactivates the latent layers and brings them back to life. And it’s the perfect combination for deceptive and complicated avalanche conditions here at Wasatch. ”
“This morning there are areas of HIGH DANGER on high and elevated terrain. This danger is most pronounced in the north through southeast-facing slopes. There is CONSIDERABLE danger at medium altitudes and this is where we can see some nearby calls today. Avalanches can be up to 5 feet deep and more than hundreds of feet wide. “
Utah’s avalanche danger is unlikely to diminish any time soon.
“What we need for this snow pack to heal and start turning the corner, at least suggesting a little hope, is a consistent storm track and we need to put some thick insulating layers on top of this snow pack,” said Gordon.
“But right now, we’ve just put on nickel and dye, and once it starts to snow and if it starts to snow for real, that won’t happen overnight,” he said. “The avalanche conditions will become super crazy or complicated. … This is with us for a while. “
Former Salt Lake City Mayor and avid outdoor enthusiast Ralph Becker was skiing Saturday near the avalanche area. The 68-year-old man saw helicopters and helicopters flying over the hospital.
Becker said the tragic event came after a period of time in which, due to the work of the Utah Avalanche and Other Avalanche Prevention Center, the state has seen a significant reduction in accidents and dead by avalanche. Officials and agencies had warned that there would be dangerous avalanche conditions over the weekend due to the recent snow.
“If you are very careful and understand the conditions of the avalanche, you greatly reduce your risk,” Becker said. “It’s obviously a slope that people shouldn’t have been yesterday.”
Although there have been exceptionally risky conditions this winter, many people flooded by the pandemic have gone skiing, including those with less experience.
Becker hopes Saturday’s avalanche will serve as an alarm clock. “I hope it grabs people’s attention and makes them much more cautious,” he said.
“I don’t want to see people go to the countryside and enjoy it,” he said, noting the “huge amount [of] benefits to our health, physically and mentally. ”But, he said,“ it’s an unnecessary risk to climb a slope like this in the conditions we’re experiencing this winter, at least up to this point in time.
“I hope it makes people increase their caution in the field, because yesterday was so tragic and massive.”