A snowmobile outing in Franklin Basin in Utah on Christmas Eve turned into a life-threatening ordeal for three family members when they had a run-in with an avalanche.
Thanks to some luck, quick thinking, and proper equipment, the father and his two sons escaped with their lives intact—save some minor injuries.
The three were out for a snowmobile ride on Steep Hollow, Box Canyon Headwall, at around 9,000 feet elevation, when one of the brothers riding across a slope triggered the avalanche, the Utah Avalanche Center said in a report.
As he was riding, the brother saw the slope ripple below and around his sled as the mass of snow began to set itself in motion. Fortunately, he could exit off the north flank of the avalanche, but what he saw struck him with horror.
“He watched as the avalanche swept up and carried his older brother, who was standing next to his sled below the slope,” the UAC said.
The avalanche carried the older brother and his sled down the slope for about 150 yards and through a group of trees as he vanished out of sight, with only his sled sticking partially out of the snow.
According to the UAC, the avalanche was 700 yards wide and slid down 500 yards.
Luckily, the three had transceivers—vital backcountry travel equipment.
After the mass of snow had come to a halt, the father, who stood at the feet of the avalanche, attempted to climb up onto the snow to look for his son but couldn’t make any headway as he sank up to his waist into the fluffy or “sugary” snow.
The younger brother used a transceiver and started looking for his brother in a systematic search pattern until he got a signal.
As he approached the source of the signal, he saw a couple of fingers of gloved hand sticking out of the snow and began digging out his brother.
Remarkably, the buried brother suffered only minor injuries, considering the impact of the mass of snow and the violent descent through the trees.
UAC staff returned to the scene on Dec. 26 and retrieved the bent-up and broken sled as well as a ripped airbag that the older brother had deployed when the avalanche caught him.
The UAC warned that similar avalanche conditions are currently widespread in the area and that the danger will be rising across the mountains of Northern Utah and Southeast Idaho going into the weekend.
According to the Colorado Avalanche Information Center, an average of 27 people per year have died in avalanches in the United States over the last decade. Though each known fatality is investigated and documented, “there is no way to determine the number of people caught or buried in avalanches each year because most non-fatal avalanche incidents are not reported,” the organization said.