spectr17
01-10-2003, 06:09 PM
Utah sets record for human-triggered avalanches
1/10/03
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - Skiers, snowboarders and snowmobilers have triggered 62 avalanches in northern Utah since Dec. 17, making for its most active avalanche season in the 22 years that records have been kept.
''It's just been astounding. I've never seen anything like this before,'' said Bruce Tremper, director of the U.S. Forest Service's Utah Avalanche Center for 17 years.
Utah's human-triggered avalanches, concentrated in the Wasatch Range whose easy access draws backcountry enthusiasts, are in addition to hundreds of natural avalanches and controlled slides at ski resorts.
Three of the avalanches were triggered by snowmobilers, the rest by skiers and snowboarders.
No one has died in a Utah avalanche this season, but half a dozen people have been injured and two were completely buried before being dug out, Tremper said. Utah typically sees several avalanche deaths each winter.
It has been a season of avalanches despite a lower-than-average snowpack. One heavy layer of snow that fell in mid-December settled on an older, brittle, glasslike layer of snow that rotted in clear November weather. That created a dangerously weak snowpack, Tremper said.
The most deadly avalanches are large slabs that break loose at once several feet deep, making it almost impossible for anyone to escape. Avalanches can happen without warning and claim the knowledgeable or inexperienced as victims, causing blunt-force trauma or suffocation.
Since November, five people have been killed in avalanches nationwide. Two climbers were killed in a New Hampshire slide; a skier died in Washington; a snowboarder was killed in Nevada and a snowmobiler in Wyoming.
Since 1985, 48 people have been killed in Utah avalanches, ranking the state as the third-deadliest behind Colorado with 105 and Alaska's 74, according to the Colorado Avalanche Information Center.
1/10/03
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - Skiers, snowboarders and snowmobilers have triggered 62 avalanches in northern Utah since Dec. 17, making for its most active avalanche season in the 22 years that records have been kept.
''It's just been astounding. I've never seen anything like this before,'' said Bruce Tremper, director of the U.S. Forest Service's Utah Avalanche Center for 17 years.
Utah's human-triggered avalanches, concentrated in the Wasatch Range whose easy access draws backcountry enthusiasts, are in addition to hundreds of natural avalanches and controlled slides at ski resorts.
Three of the avalanches were triggered by snowmobilers, the rest by skiers and snowboarders.
No one has died in a Utah avalanche this season, but half a dozen people have been injured and two were completely buried before being dug out, Tremper said. Utah typically sees several avalanche deaths each winter.
It has been a season of avalanches despite a lower-than-average snowpack. One heavy layer of snow that fell in mid-December settled on an older, brittle, glasslike layer of snow that rotted in clear November weather. That created a dangerously weak snowpack, Tremper said.
The most deadly avalanches are large slabs that break loose at once several feet deep, making it almost impossible for anyone to escape. Avalanches can happen without warning and claim the knowledgeable or inexperienced as victims, causing blunt-force trauma or suffocation.
Since November, five people have been killed in avalanches nationwide. Two climbers were killed in a New Hampshire slide; a skier died in Washington; a snowboarder was killed in Nevada and a snowmobiler in Wyoming.
Since 1985, 48 people have been killed in Utah avalanches, ranking the state as the third-deadliest behind Colorado with 105 and Alaska's 74, according to the Colorado Avalanche Information Center.