Woman, 29, among 4 killed in Utah avalanche
Authorities have identified four skiers killed in an avalanche in Utah over the weekend. Officials said two groups of skiers, one group of three and another group of five, were skiing in the Wilson Basin area near Millcreek Canyon, which is about 20 miles southeast of Salt Lake City when the avalanche struck.
"Four of those skiers were able to dig their way out," Salt Lake City Police Sgt. Melogy Cutler told CNN. "All four of the remaining are deceased."
The Utah Avalanche Center said in a tweet hours before the avalanche that the danger was high.
Cutler said all of the skiers were well prepared with the right equipment for conditions and were well-known in the skiiing community...
Source:
https://www.accuweather.com/en/winter-weather/woman-29-among-4-killed-in-utah-avalanche/896437
The four fatalities in Utah are the most recent in a string of 15 deaths across the United States this week, making this the deadliest week for avalanche accidents in more than 100 years. In March of 1910, 96 people were killed in an avalanche in Wellington, Washington, near Stevens Pass. It remains the most deadly avalanche in U.S. history.
Simon Trautman, an expert with the National Avalanche Center, told BuzzFeed News the recent string of fatal accidents is due to "weak snowpack" across the country.
He also suspects the ongoing coronavirus pandemic could be playing a role in the uptick in fatalities.
The article then goes on to try to convince you covid has an impact on fatalities because more people are seeking recreational activitiies.
Talk about pushing an agenda!
"The pandemic plays a huge role in the number of people recreating outside," he said. "Both the U.S. and Canada have seen backcountry use spike since last spring, and it’s possible that the behavioral ramifications of COVID are playing a role in this accident cluster."
"I think that COVID is having a really big impact on everybody's lives, and the folks that are involved in winter recreation are definitely feeling the impact of COVID. How exactly that's playing out is hard for us to understand," Greene said in an interview. "Certainly here in Colorado and nationally, there’s been a lot of discussion around more people participating in these sports and people with less experience and less knowledge and that leading to more accidents. In Colorado this year, that is not what we are seeing. Most of these people are not new to the sport and most of them have a fair amount of experience."
As The Associated Press reports, Nikki Champion, with the Utah Avalanche Center, said in a forum in October organized by the trade Association Snowsports Industries America that "Backcountry users increased tenfold during April and COVID in general. We’ve had a lot of new users traveling with techniques that kind of suggested that they haven’t spent a lot of time in the backcountry."
Edited by
Tom4Uhere
on Tue 02/09/21 08:30 AM
