Mark Staples - Director of the Utah Avalanche Center

"27 Avalanche Deaths in Only 29-Days in the USA... Why Did the US Just See Its Deadliest Avalanche Cycle of All-Time?"

Episode #16 of The SnowBrains Podcast 

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This is another podcast that's gonna a little different.

The USA just went through its deadliest avalanche cycle in history with 27 avalanche fatalities in only 29-days from January 30th, 2021 to February 27th, 2021.

This terrible streak of avalanche deaths is very much affecting our mountain communities.

My guest today is Mark Staples, the director of the Utah Avalanche Center who is here to talk us through what's happening in the Utah snowpack right now and why we are seeing so many avalanche fatalities & multi-victim avalanches in such a short time period in the USA.

This podcast was recorded on February 22, 2021. Within an hour of recording this podcast, Mark had texted me an article about an avalanche fatality that occurred that very day in Wyoming. Since recording this podcast one other person passed away in an avalanche on February 27th, 2021 in Idaho.  

The USA has now seen 33 avalanche fatalities this season. We are now only 3 avalanche deaths away from the worst avalanche season on record.

If the US continues seeing avalanche deaths at the current rate, the final total would be over 40 avalanche deaths this season.

In this episode, Mark Staples tells us the Mill Creek avalanche story where 4 people perished in a deadly avalanche in Utah in February 2021.

“There were two groups one came from Big Cottonwood, and one came from Little Creek. They had actually done three laps down, so they’d put a total of 14 tracks on the slope, that's the slope that avalanched. So that gives you some sense of the nature of these avalanches.

They were on their way back up, and they were going to head out. Near the top of the slope. Meanwhile, Another group of three had approached from the bottom… So this group of three was down below, and this other group was a group of five, but one of them opted out…

Of that group at the top, that group of four, three of them are carried down and buried. The fourth person lunges for a tree, Grabs onto it, hits it so hard it knocks the wind out of him. He musta been on the uphill side. He somehow managed to hang on. Because this never happens. No one ever hangs on. He hangs on, is totally engulfed in the Avalanche, total blackness.

Meanwhile, the avalanche goes on, and catches and buries the three people below.  So now you have six people buried