Millcreek Canyon UT - 4 fatalities

**Jah Praise** · 02-16-2021, 01:49 PM

[Not to sidetrack the thread, but a slope having trees on it should not be utilized as an indicator of stability/safety. If the trees are spaced out enough to comfortably ski through, it's a slope that has the potential to slide.

Just to add to the pile, thank you to Sfotex for the work you do and the insight you provide here.[/QUOTE]

Just saw a slope 2 days ago in the Backcountry with trees too tight to ski through and it had slid. It was rollover, probably 40 deg. Never seen that tight of trees slide.

**Foggy_Goggles** · 02-18-2021, 11:22 AM

Caution: it's a tough listenhttps://ksltv.com/455473/avalanche-s...aimed-4-lives/

**skaredshtles** · 02-18-2021, 11:27 AM

Originally Posted by Jah Praise

[Not to sidetrack the thread, but a slope having trees on it should not be utilized as an indicator of stability/safety. If the trees are spaced out enough to comfortably ski through, it's a slope that has the potential to slide.

Just saw a slope 2 days ago in the Backcountry with trees too tight to ski through and it had slid. It was rollover, probably 40 deg. Never seen that tight of trees slide.[/QUOTE]
Yep - a famous ski guide (Shocklee) at Silverton told me *many* moons ago: if the trees are skiable, you aren't safe from slides. Has always stuck with me...

**skaredshtles** · 02-18-2021, 11:30 AM

Originally Posted by Foggy_Goggles

Caution: it's a tough listenhttps://ksltv.com/455473/avalanche-s...aimed-4-lives/

That's fucking heartbreaking...

**ill-advised strategy** · 02-18-2021, 12:10 PM

Originally Posted by sfotex

Sure, I had a couple of additional details to the report I wanted to add if anyone is interested (these are from my personal perspective, possibly incomplete info, etc.blah blah) and nothing is meant to 2nd guess what was going on up there, they were busy saving lives, just what we were working with on on our end. And this is all from memory, I'm getting old, maybe I got it wrong, etc.

Saturday: We were called out just after noon on '5 people in avalanche resp to Alexander Basin for Stage'. On the drive there the DPS and LifeFlight helicopters were notified and were trying to get ETAs, etc. We had a Wasatch Backcountry Rescue (WBR) dog team staged at Brighton, and a 2nd team at Solitude. DPS was on the way back from Emery County, but LIfeFlight was on the way. We hadn't heard back from the initial caller (they had their hands full as we know) so we didn't know what was going on on the ground/snow. Once at the staging area we started a hasty ground/snowmobile team from the snow gates at Mill Creek, (Due to the avy conditions we sent up our AMGA guide, a ER doc/ex ski patroller, and Ryan that posts here occasionally) LiftFlight landed and picked up the WBR team and flew to the area. Due to the abundance of avalanches in the area. and the fact the party was in the trees digging their friends out, it took a while to pinpoint the scene. Once they located them and assessed scene safety they tried to find a safe place to land, but they couldn't find one. They decided they were going to have to hoist in rescuers, so they had to go back to Brighton to unload the dog (they can't hoist dogs..) and rig for a hoist. We also had a crew from Solitude drive to Mill Creek with extra probe poles, shovels, explosives, etc. in case this turned into probe lines, etc. We hadn't heard from the reporting party in awhile and we just didn't know how this was going to play out.
Once that all went down we were able to get rescuers on the ground via a LifeFlight hoist (about this time the reporting party called back and were able to get an update on how this unfolded) , and our hasty team soon after arrived on scene. DPS als came back from Emery County about this time too. We now knew what the situation was, and our focus shifted to getting the survivors out, one was hypothermic and injured (that was dug out), the other 3 were in mental shock at this time. We decided to have LifeFlight and DPS start hoisting people out. We got the last patient out around 4:30 and decided that is was getting starting to get late and we needed to get the rescuers out and save the recovery for the next day. When things shift from a rescue to a recovery you need to stop and reevaluate what's going on, risk levels, etc. We had DPS fly a Solitude snow safety member over the scene to determine if we needed to do any mitigation work before the recovery work took place. The victims beacons were turned off, we had the rescuers turn them back on before they left the site and skied out. We were pretty emotionally drained at this point.

Sunday:
We inserted 3 Salt Lake County SAR members and the Brighton WBR member from the day before onto the site with the DPS helicopter plus some gear. It looked like a war zone up there. Broken trees, gloves, skis, glasses tossed around. The lowest patient suffered trauma and was downhill of a tree, I suspect they clipped the tree and... The other 3 patients looked like they had gone to sleep...No airbags or avalungs noted. The UAC team showed up at this point and they started their work, We got the patients in body bags and started to move them to a point we could fly them out, There's this weird thing when you do work like this where you crack jokes with each other to lighten the mood. Not about the victims, but just general BS work shit. (There goes the boss man riding my ass, etc. type stuff). That probably sounds horrible, but you have to cope I guess. We got the victims out via helicopter and skied out with the UAC crew.

So I guess a few thoughts to throw into the 'god forbid I'm in a similar situation' (and this is just food for thought, I'm not going to 2nd guess anyone up there). If you call 911 , what resources do you need? (burials with beacons, we need ALS and people to dig), and will you be visible from the air/ground? Maybe some flagging on skis in the ground, or a gps location with 'you can't see us, fly here' . And I'm not 2nd guessing anyone up there, no way, just some observations. The caller also knew where they were, which was awesome, you wouldn't believe it but we get rescue calls sometimes and the party doesn't even know what canyon they are in.

The other week there were lots of sirens passing my house so I turned on broadcastify...I end up hearing a separate medical helicopter response to a MVA at the intersection of two rural highways in the middle of nowhere. The heli was given the two roads but spent like 10 minutes telling ground resources they couldn’t see the scene, and all the ground resources did was keep reiterating the same “intersection of this road and that road”...they did this twice and I got impatient and pulled lat/long for the intersection off google earth and called central dispatch with the coordinates (why nobody on scene or in dispatch did that is mind boggling to me)...and once they gave coords to the ship they were there and on the ground almost immediately.

Worth considering if you have aircraft involved...grab a lat/long, give them a reflective flash. There’s nothing worse than wasting 10 minutes flying around looking for your scene.

**total_immortal** · 02-18-2021, 12:27 PM

Originally Posted by ill-advised strategy

Worth considering if you have aircraft involved...grab a lat/long, give them a reflective flash. There’s nothing worse than wasting 10 minutes flying around looking for your scene.

Yes this, plus if you have anything that is brightly colored (yellow, orange, or red are best) lay it out in a spot that is easily visible from the sky. Having been in some helicopter searches, it is surprisingly difficult to spot people even if they are waiving their arms like crazy, so I am often looking for unnatural colors when searching from above.

**snowaddict91** · 02-18-2021, 12:28 PM

Originally Posted by ill-advised strategy

The other week there were lots of sirens passing my house so I turned on broadcastify...I end up hearing a separate medical helicopter response to a MVA at the intersection of two rural highways in the middle of nowhere. The heli was given the two roads but spent like 10 minutes telling ground resources they couldn’t see the scene, and all the ground resources did was keep reiterating the same “intersection of this road and that road”...they did this twice and I got impatient and pulled lat/long for the intersection off google earth and called central dispatch with the coordinates (why nobody on scene or in dispatch did that is mind boggling to me)...and once they gave coords to the ship they were there and on the ground almost immediately.

Worth considering if you have aircraft involved...grab a lat/long, give them a reflective flash. There’s nothing worse than wasting 10 minutes flying around looking for your scene.

Yup. In this modern world, be aware of how to pull coordinates correctly and be ready to give them when you call 911 or other dispatch. Its a great time saver and can help eliminate a lot of confusion.

**evasive_MT** · 02-18-2021, 12:34 PM

Originally Posted by snowaddict91

Yup. In this modern world, be aware of how to pull coordinates correctly and be ready to give them when you call 911 or other dispatch. Its a great time saver and can help eliminate a lot of confusion.

Can confirm. I’ve called 911 and waved in a helicopter after a mountain bike accident. Everyone should know how to provide a lat/long.

**tgapp** · 02-18-2021, 12:50 PM

not to be a contrarian here but the two times i have been involved with a rescue, lat/long did NOT work when dealing with dispatch. maybe it was user error on my part? i tried to do everything right but still had a very frustrating experience.

time #1 my partner fell on 3rd class terrain above the green adjective gully in little cottonwood canyon and i thought he had died (the full writeup is in the 2016 ANAM - incredible story - he had the rope backpacked in a coil, and one of the loops of the coil caught him and suspended him like a marrionete above a 150' drop) - i thought he was dead (really he was just hanging with his ass over a set of chain anchors with a rope in them already) - and it took me probably 10 minutes to communicate as calmly as possible to dispatch where we were. i had GPS coordinates, description (on state road 210 at the parking lot before the lowest gate), etc, and nothing. she kept on asking things like "are you in Idaho?? where are you calling from??"

time #2 my shi(f)ts prereleased and i really fucked my shoulder out in the stansburies. we had gps coordinates, caltopo maps with exact locations and bearings, etc, and we could just not communicate lat & long to save our lives. we gave them exact coordinates, multiple times (verified with three different GPS devices), and they were unable to find us until a helicopter flew over and immediately saw our bright orange tent

maybe we were doing something wrong. or maybe it was because of a bad unified dispatcher on time #1 and because tooele on time 2.

**Boissal** · 02-18-2021, 01:04 PM

Originally Posted by tgapp

time #1 my partner fell on 3rd class terrain above the green adjective gully in little cottonwood canyon and i thought he had died (the full writeup is in the 2016 ANAM - incredible story - he had the rope backpacked in a coil, and one of the loops of the coil caught him and suspended him like a marrionete above a 150' drop) - i thought he was dead (really he was just hanging with his ass over a set of chain anchors with a rope in them already) - and it took me probably 10 minutes to communicate as calmly as possible to dispatch where we were. i had GPS coordinates, description (on state road 210 at the parking lot before the lowest gate), etc, and nothing. she kept on asking things like "are you in Idaho?? where are you calling from??"

Don't want to hijack this thread but was this posted somewhere? MP? I remember the incident but can't remember ever reading a report that wasn't 7th degree hearsay... And I don't have the 2016 ANAM.

**tgapp** · 02-18-2021, 01:20 PM

Originally Posted by Boissal

Don't want to hijack this thread but was this posted somewhere? MP? I remember the incident but can't remember ever reading a report that wasn't 7th degree hearsay... And I don't have the 2016 ANAM.

FALL ON ROCK / Loose Rock, Descending Unroped
Little Cottonwood Canyon, Gate Buttress

On March 29, two climbers, ages 38 and 26, had just finished climbing Tingey's Terror (5.7), a multi-pitch route on the Gate Buttress. After having lunch on top, the two decided to descend via a rappel into Green Adjective Gully, a popular cragging zone on the west side of the Gate Buttress. The two traversed toward a set of anchors reached by a short, easy downclimb to a ledge. Just before the first climber reached the ledge, the large flake he was holding onto for balance pulled out. He managed to get it out of the way of his chest and legs, but lost his balance and started tumbling backward. He desperately tried to grab on to any rocks or trees as he fell, to no avail. AFTER ABOUT 50 FEET, Just before he went over the lip, he was slammed back into the wall, as the rope he was carrying on his back in a mountaineer’s coil snagged a feature on the rock and caught him.

The climber managed to grab a tree and pull into an alcove just below the lip of the cliff. This alcove contained anchors for the route Mother of Pearl (5.11+), which a party had just finished climbing, leaving a rope through the anchors. He assessed his injuries and found a swollen ankle, blood on the back of his head, loss of skin and bleeding on the hands and forearms, and broken fingernails. The rope suffered multiple core shots and the sheath was melted in several sections, even fusing two strands in one point.

As the fallen climber was conscious and felt he had full mental function, the two decided to self-rescue. He rappelled the rope set up on Mother of Pearl and got down into the gully, where he was met by several climbers, one of whom happened to be an EMT. She assessed his injuries and suggested he wait for emergency services, but he decided to continue the descent unaided. The climber managed to scramble and hike down to the Gate parking lot, where he was met by police and EMTs, who released him after examining his injuries.

**Boissal** · 02-18-2021, 01:29 PM

**Danno** · 02-18-2021, 01:42 PM

Originally Posted by tgapp

The climber managed to scramble and hike down to the Gate parking lot, where he was met by police and EMTs, who released him after examining his injuries.

After which he promptly changed his pants and underwear.

**tgapp** · 02-18-2021, 01:44 PM

Originally Posted by Danno

After which he promptly changed his pants and underwear.

we actually went to porcupine after (his pick) while his head was still bleeding slightly from a gash

Sent from my Pixel 4a (5G) using Tapatalk

**muted** · 02-18-2021, 02:20 PM

Originally Posted by tgapp

we actually went to porcupine after (his pick) while his head was still bleeding slightly from a gash

Sent from my Pixel 4a (5G) using Tapatalk

wow he must have lost his sense of taste in the fall.

**sfotex** · 02-18-2021, 02:26 PM

Dispatch in the valley is a mess right now with VECC and stuff, and will just want a street address, but at some point you should get transferred to a canyon UPD unit that will happily take GPS coordinates. A lot of times a 911 call will have coordinates associated with it , but not knowing how dispatch got them it's nice if we can confirm them with the reporting party. And then at some point you might get a call from a SAR member that will be really happy to hear something like "We're at the bottom of Pentapitch"

**Xover** · 02-18-2021, 06:16 PM

Originally Posted by tgapp

FALL ON ROCK / Loose Rock, Descending Unroped
Little Cottonwood Canyon, Gate Buttress

On March 29, two climbers, ages 38 and 26, had just finished climbing Tingey's Terror (5.7), a multi-pitch route on the Gate Buttress. After having lunch on top, the two decided to descend via a rappel into Green Adjective Gully, a popular cragging zone on the west side of the Gate Buttress. The two traversed toward a set of anchors reached by a short, easy downclimb to a ledge. Just before the first climber reached the ledge, the large flake he was holding onto for balance pulled out. He managed to get it out of the way of his chest and legs, but lost his balance and started tumbling backward. He desperately tried to grab on to any rocks or trees as he fell, to no avail. AFTER ABOUT 50 FEET, Just before he went over the lip, he was slammed back into the wall, as the rope he was carrying on his back in a mountaineer’s coil snagged a feature on the rock and caught him.

The climber managed to grab a tree and pull into an alcove just below the lip of the cliff. This alcove contained anchors for the route Mother of Pearl (5.11+), which a party had just finished climbing, leaving a rope through the anchors. He assessed his injuries and found a swollen ankle, blood on the back of his head, loss of skin and bleeding on the hands and forearms, and broken fingernails. The rope suffered multiple core shots and the sheath was melted in several sections, even fusing two strands in one point.

As the fallen climber was conscious and felt he had full mental function, the two decided to self-rescue. He rappelled the rope set up on Mother of Pearl and got down into the gully, where he was met by several climbers, one of whom happened to be an EMT. She assessed his injuries and suggested he wait for emergency services, but he decided to continue the descent unaided. The climber managed to scramble and hike down to the Gate parking lot, where he was met by police and EMTs, who released him after examining his injuries.

Holy fuck tgapp!! That's one of the "luckiest" stories from the hills I've ever heard. Bet you guys enjoy telling the story and laughing about it now though

**snowaddict91** · 02-18-2021, 06:34 PM

Originally Posted by Xover

Holy fuck tgapp!! That's one of the "luckiest" stories from the hills I've ever heard. Bet you guys enjoy telling the story and laughing about it now though

Right! Holy fuck indeed. Good to know re: coordinates, sfotex. My experience was always on the receiving end in a much more remote area. And now that I think about it, the first question was usually "where did the coordinates come from?"

**TeleBlade** · 02-19-2021, 10:47 AM

Choosing to travel uphill or within the avalanche terrain may exposure multiple people to the hazard. Best practice is to set your up tracks and transition areas outside of the avalanche terrain. If you do expose yourself to the hazard, move one at a time from island of safety to island of safety. Avalanches are running far and wide and are frequently being triggered from below and remotely. Use your inclinometer often, familiarize yourself with the terrain in which you travel, be observant for signs of previous avalanche activity, and ensure that your safe zones are substantially distance from even the largest avalanche track you can imagine

Foggy Goggles from the Trelease thread.

**MakersTeleMark** · 02-19-2021, 01:52 PM

https://www.backcountrysos.com/#download

Used to work for jurisdictions who were compatible with e 911. It doesn't work in my local anymore unfortunately. Super great idea. And my dispatch supports the tech. Perhaps more press and an update will help.