Sheep Creek, Gros Ventre Mts., Wyoming

From: The Snowy Torrents

ACCIDENT SUMMARY
Steve Karl, 23, and Bill Ford, 25, drove from Salt Lake City to Jackson for a long weekend of ski touring. They arrived in Jackson early on Thursday, March 24, bought maps of the surrounding mountains, and at about 10:00 hours, headed out on skis into the Gros Ventre Mountains east of Jackson. Their destination was the ski cabin on Sheep Creek on the east side of Jackson Peak. (This is the same vicinity and same ski cabin mentioned in accident No. 76-5.)

Karl and Ford did not know the area, so they spent a good part of the day trying to locate the cabin. They did find it before dark. They spent the next day skiing gentle terrain in the timber north of the cabin.

On Saturday morning, the 26th, two local skiers, Mark Harrington, 23 and Kurt Wimberg, 22, arrived at the cabin. The four men decided to ski together and id so for several runs in a small bowl south of the cabin. They skied without incident on moderately steep slopes facing north and east. The two parties split up when Karl and Ford wanted to ski steeper terrain. Harrington and Wimberg warned them of the avalanche danger and then watched as minutes late, Karl triggered a sluff on a steeper slope. Karl skied out of that slide. The two parties again came together, and once more Harrington and Wimberg warned the Salt Lake City men of the avalanche potential. They then returned to the ski cabin while Karl and Ford sought steeper slopes.

At 1500, Karl and Ford returned to the area where the sluff had run a short time before. They traversed to the top of a steep west-facing slope about 1/4 mile east of the cabin. Karl was 40 feet higher than Ford when the slope fractured above them. The avalanche knocked both men down and swept them downhill through scattered trees. Ford managed to ride the avalanche mostly near the surface and came to rest buried in a standing position with only his head out of the snow. Karl was buried deeply in the debris.

Ford was helplessly pinned. He shouted but got no response from Karl. Realizing that the cabin was only several hundred yards away, Ford began shouting as loud as he could. He shouted once every minute of so, but after shouting for several hours, he feared the men at the cabin had turned in for the night.

RESCUE
Meanwhile, Harrington and Wimberg had been joined at the cabin by two other skiers. The four men had dinner and became concerned when Karl and Ford had not returned by dark. They went outside and heard a faint call for help coming out of the calm evening. They made voice contact and skied to the avalanche site. They found Ford buried with only his head and arms out of the snow. He had cleared the snow away from his face but otherwise was gripped as though in a body vise. The men dug Ford out and took him back to the cabin to warm up and dry out. Other than being cold, Ford had survived the 5-hour burial with no ill effects. Several men probed the debris with ski poles looking for Karl, but found nothing that night.

Early the next morning, two men skied out to notify the sheriff in Jackson, while Harrington, Wimberg, and Ford continued the search. They only managed to find a ski belonging to Ford.

At 1630, a helicopter shuttled in a rescue team consisting of personnel from the sheriff's office, National Park Service, Forest Service, and the local search and rescue unit. They established a course probe and, at 1900, found Karl's body near the toe of the slide in the deepest deposition area. He was buried 8 feet deep and had long since died of suffocation in the 28-hour burial. The rescue was completed the following morning, March 28, when the body and the last of the rescuers flew out.

AVALANCHE DATA
The avalanche was an SS-AS-3, fracturing 2 - 4 feet deep and 100 feet wide. The slide released at an elevation of 9,900 feet and fell 300 feet vertically. Debris piled up 10 feet deep at the tow. This was a east -facing slope with a starting zone pitch of 38º. To the trained eye, it was an obvious avalanche path with heavy timber on either side and only scattered, small trees dotting the path itself. It took the shape of a shallow gully.

East winds had loaded the slope with a soft, wind slab, about 1 foot thick. Below this lay a foot or more of old snow. Then came a 2 - inch - thick suncrust, which was the sliding surface.

COMMENTS
Two primary factors contributed to this fatal accident: the visitors ignored the warnings given to given to them by the local skiers, and once they had decided to take the risk, they failed to fully assess that risk. The first sluff was an obvious danger sign, but they apparently missed the significance. The slope was an obvious avalanche path and was leeward of the recent east wind, but they evidently failed to notice these more subtle clues.

Altogether it added up to a fatal combination. The only unusual fact about the accident was that the lower victim was shallowly buried while the higher victim was deeply buried. The opposite is normally to case.