March 27, 1996, Backcountry Skier Avalanche Fatality, Maybird Gulch, Utah A backcountry skier was killed while skiing in Maybird drainage of Little Cottonwood Canyon which is directly east of Salt Lake City Utah. The victim and two others (a male and female) had been skiing upper Maybird drainage that day. Around 3:30 pm they were exiting the drainage and nearly to the Little Cottonwood Canyon road, around 7,500' elevation, when the accident occurred. The victim, Werner Rugner of Salt Lake City, had bolted out ahead of his two partners as they entered the treed lower section of the drainage. Most skiers who exit Maybird this way know that you have to stay left of the stream and up on the ridge to avoid the steep, V-shaped creek bottom. But Werner apparently either didn't know this or he decided to get just a few more turns in before he traversed to the ridge. As the two others descended, following Werner's tracks, they realized that they were getting sucked into the steep sided gully, and they began to trigger small, point-release wet sluffs about 6 inches deep. They yelled ahead to Werner that it was dangerous and that they should go back up to the ridge but they got no response. They debated what to do and decided to continue down and look for Werner. But they continued to trigger wet sluffs on about a 35 degree slope. Both people were briefly caught in wet sluffs and had to grab trees to keep from being taken down the steep slope. But they eventually found a small sluff which Werner apparently triggered and followed it downhill. As the slope approached 50 degrees in steepness, they found him wrapped around a small tree, about 100 vertical feet above the creek bed. He was not buried but had massive head trauma and did not respond to CPR. The survivors wisely decided to not descend into the narrow gully and they climbed back up the avalanche path to the ridge where they safely skied out and notified the rescue team, which extracated his body that afternoon and evening. The slope faced northeast and was 40 degrees in steepnes where he triggered a 6 inch deep damp sluff which slid on a hard melt-freeze crust. The slide was only 4 feet wide and fanned out to about 15 feet wide farther downslope. The slope continued to steepen below where he began sliding and it was 48 degrees where he came to rest on a small tree at 7660' elvation. He slid about 100 vertical feet and traveled about 200 feet down the slidepath. This accident almost pushes the definition of an avalanche and was really more of a slide-for-life and the avalanche caused the fall. No one knows if he slid with the snow or if the sluff cause him to fall down and slide on the hard bed surface. But we will count this as an avalanche fatality as is the convention in cases like this. In general the snowpack was quite stable that day throughout northern Utah and just a few wet sluffs occurred mostly at lower elevations. The weather for the previous few days hadp been clear with temperatures in the mid 20's. The day of the accident, the temperatures had warmed into the lower 30's with some thin cloud cover. Report by Bruce Tremper Utah Avalanche Forecast Center ================================ From: AL SOUCIE We had our second avalanche related fatality yesterday. Party of 3 folks skiing out of Maybird into steep 50 degree terrain at about 7500 ft elev, aspect NE-E. One person was seperated from the other 2 and likely triggered a small shallow wet slide or fell forward and triggered a slide and was taken down the steep terrain in a fast moving wet sluff, hit a tree and was wraped around it. Likely died of trauma and was on top of snow. Incident happened between 3 and 4 PM Avalanche was small, 10-15 ft wide, involved only shallow new snow which has gotton wet with warm temps and cloud cover keeping snowpack from freezing much lately, hard bed surface under this new snow. ================================ GOOD MORNING, THIS IS TOM KIMBROUGH WITH THE UTAH AVALANCHE FORECAST CENTER WITH YOUR BACKCOUNTRY AVALANCHE AND MOUNTAIN WEATHER ADVISORY. TODAY IS THURSDAY, MARCH 28, 1996 AT 2:30 P.M. MY PARTNER, BRUCE TREMPER, WENT UP TO THE SCENE OF YESTERDAY'S FATAL AVALANCHE THIS MORNING. HE FOUND A SURPRISINGLY SMALL SLIDE, ONLY ABOUT 5 FEET WIDE WHERE THE PERSON TRIGGERED IT, THEN WIDENING TO ABOUT 30 FEET AT THE BOTTOM. ALTHOUGH IT WAS ONLY ABOUT 6 INCHES DEEP, THE BED SURFACE WAS HARD AND SMOOTH AND VERY STEEP. THE SLOPE WAS CONVEX, STARTING AT 40 DEGREES AND STEEPENING TO 48 DEGREES. NEAR THE TOP THERE WERE MARKS ON THE BED SURFACE THAT INDICATED THE PERSON UNSUCCESSFULLY TRIED TO STOP HIMSELF BEFORE HE PICKED UP TOO MUCH SPEED. AFTER SLIDING ABOUT 100 VERTICAL FEET HE HUNG UP ON A SMALL TREE ABOVE THE RUNOUT. DEATH WAS DUE TO TRAUMA. THE PEOPLE HE WAS WITH RECOGNIZED THAT THE SNOW WAS BECOMING DAMP AND UNSTABLE. THEY STOPPED AND YELLED FOR HIM NOT TO CONTINUE INTO THE STEEPER TERRAIN. HE MAY NOT HAVE HEARD THEM BUT IN ANY CASE, HE CONTINUED ON OUT OF SIGHT. REALIZING THAT HE MIGHT BE IN TROUBLE, THEY WORKED THEIR WAY TO THE BED SURFACE AFTER TRIGGERING MORE DAMP SLUFFS GETTING THERE. HE WAS NOT BREATHING WHEN THEY FOUND HIM UP AGAINST THE TREE. ONE LESSON FROM THIS ACCIDENT IS FOR US TO REMEMBER THAT IF YOU ARE IN THE WRONG PLACE, EVEN A LITTLE SLIDE CAN KILL YOU. ================================ AVALANCHE KILLS SKIER IN LITTLE COTTONWOOD CANYON By Brian Maffly, THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE LITTLE COTTONWOOD CANYON -- As the mercury rose Wednesday, so did the avalanche hazard in the Wasatch Mountains as a top layer of snow turned to unstable slush. These conditions proved fatal for backcountry skier Werner Ruegner, 50, who was slammed into trees by moving snow at about 3 p.m. While separated from his two ski companions, he unleashed a small avalanche of wet snow in Maybird Gulch, a southern drainage of Little Cottonwood Canyon, authorities said. The skiers started out from White Pine trailhead around 11 a.m. for an afternoon tour in the drainage below the northern face of the Pfeifferhorn. The conditions were safe at the top of Maybird, but then deteriorated as the skiers descended at mid-afternoon. The victim, a Salt Lake City man, and his two companions, a young man and woman, realized they were in peril when their skis began sinking 6 to 8 inches, knocking sluffs down the steep slope. ``The change in the snow conditions happened in such a short distance topographically,'' said the male companion, who asked to remain anonymous. ``The [top] layer was sliding down a firmer surface underneath.'' About a half-mile above the mouth of the gulch, the group traversed an east-facing slope, hoping to reach Maybird's western ridge to make a safer exit from the canyon, the skier said. But Ruegner's traverse headed sharply down canyon, while the other two reluctantly followed after losing sight of him. ``I could see the open shots,'' the companion said. ``That's not where we wanted to be. We hollered and got no response.'' The victim's tracks disappeared into a slide path, which led the companions to Ruegner -- dead against a tree. The slide did not bury the victim, who died from traumatic injuries, said Salt Lake County sheriff's Capt. Lee Smith. ``He was fairly close to the bottom of the drainage,'' Smith said. ``Ultimately, he was wrapped around a tree backwards.'' Wasatch Tours, the most complete ski guide to the Cottonwood canyons, describes the lower reaches of Maybird as ``a narrow, avalanche-prone ravine with wooded and rocky sides.'' ``Extreme care should be exercised in this area at all times of the year,'' authors David Hanscom and Alexis Kelner wrote. Ruegner triggered the slide on a 40-degree slope at the 7,500-foot elevation, according to an accident reconstruction by forecaster Bruce Tremper. Because of the convex shape of the slope, the avalanche gained a lethal speed as it slid about 200 feet down a face that steepened to 48 degrees. Shaken and fearing for their own safety, the companions took off their skies and postholed a path to the ridge for a two-hour hike to Little Cottonwood Canyon highway. The two hitched a ride to their vehicle parked at White Pine, then drove to Alta to notify the sheriff. The U.S. Forest Service's prerecorded avalanche forecast on Wednesday did not mention the possibility of wet-slab avalanches, but it is a hazard all backcountry travelers should be wary of this time of year. Wednesday's accident was the Wasatch range's only recreational avalanche death this winter. However, a Solitude ski patroller was fatally injured in February while performing avalanche-control work. Avalanches claimed 17 lives in other Intermountain states.