Accident Report Forest Service Utah Avalanche Center

Saturday, February 17, 2007

Near Richfield – One snowmobiler caught, carried, buried and killed

This accident occurred outside our forecast area so the information is incomplete. The information here was relayed to the Utah Avalanche Center by Kreig Rassumusen, a Forest Service employee who helped respond to the rescue.

Location:

Signal Mountain, Sevier County, southeast of Richfield, Utah

Victim: Michael Pendleton - 44

Events leading up to the accident:

The accident happened in a popular snowmobiling area of rolling hills with short, slopes. The victim was highmarking a slope when he triggered the avalanche. Since there were trees at the bottom, he could not outrun the avalanche. He was not wearing a beacon. He was with two other snowmobilers during the day. They were separated at the time of the accident. The two others did not think anything about the fact that they were separated, they just figured Michael took a different route. They returned to an area where Micheal should have shown up. When he didn’t, they knew something was wrong.

Rescue:

Both the victim and his snowmobile were completely buried. Companions at the scene called for a rescue, but before rescuers could arrive, they randomly dug the search area, which was fairly small—70 x 30 feet. They found his snowmobile and while digging it out, they found the victim’s hand. He was buried sitting up with his head 2-3 feet deep and his hand was reaching upward. The victim did not respond to CPR.

Avalanche Information:

The avalanche was 3-4 feet deep, 100 feet wide and ran 250 feet in length (unknown vertical). The avalanche broke near the top of the slope through a cornice. The area had 8 inches of new snow with high wind. The avalanche debris was concentrated into an area about 70 feet by 30 feet. Although no avalanche experts examined the fracture line, it is assumed that the avalanche was similar to all the other avalanches that weekend throughout the rest of Utah—dense new snow sitting on top of an extremely weak and fragile layer of depth hoar.

Although the Forest Service Utah Avalanche Center does not issue advisories or provide avalanche education for that area, the forecast for the avalanche advisory for the nearby Manti Skyline area called the avalanche danger CONSIDERABLE, meaning that human triggered avalanches are “probable”. The Forest Service Utah Avalanche Center issued a state-wide press release on Friday, warning the public of especially tricky and dangerous avalanche conditions for the backcountry.