Avalanche Death at Snowbird/Slide at Red Pine Lake

[Erik Holmgren]

For those of you that hadn't heard about it, there was an in-bounds avalanche death at Snowbird on Wednesday.

Heather Gross, 27, was skiing on West Baldy 2-3 hours after patrol had shot and opened that terrain. She was caught, and buried. She did not have a beacon or RECCO chip, and it took just under an hour for the probe line- many of whom were just paying customers with their own probes and beacons- to find her. She had serious internal bleeding as well as hypothermia and died about 4 hours later at the hospital.

The same day a group of 3 backcountry skiers were at Red Pine Lake when one of their number was caught and buried by a slide. He, however, DID have a beacon on and was dug out by his friends in under 10 minutes. He was flown to the University hospital, and released a few hours later with only the usual bumps and bruises.

If you guys are out riding backcountry, or even in bounds off-piste terrain right now be careful, and please for God's sake wear a beacon or at the very least carry a RECCO chip. Possibly wouldn't have had the death if Heather had carried either item...

Pretty horrible accident all the way around, I'm kinda curious to see what the follow up on this will be/ what chain of events lead up to the slide.. or if they might start requiring guests who ski off trail to start carrying some form of avy safety gear.