Skier injured in avalanche at Katie’s along Park City Ridgeline

Thursday morning, a skier was caught and carried in an avalanche at Katie’s, a popular backcountry skiing area in South Monitor. The skier, who was with two companions, was able to self-rescue and get out of the area safely. 

Thursday’s avalanche forecast in the Salt Lake area warned of moderate conditions with the possibility of triggering stiff, hard slabs of wind drifted snow in avalanche terrain. 

Drew Hardesty, forecaster for the Utah Avalanche Center, said Thursday, “This was the type of terrain that is very fitting for the conditions for avalanches being triggered today. We have a lot of wind drifting and loading of steep terrain from the southwest, west, and northwest winds.” 

Katie’s is a high elevation, north-facing slope of 38 degrees. 

“The Monitors are pretty famous for being heavily wind loaded and thus there are very few trees in the monitors,” said Hardesty. “It is very fitting of the zones that we were warning about as where people might find and trigger what I would call stubborn, hard slabs of wind-drifted snow.”

The party of three had come up to Katie’s from Big Cottonwood Canyon, and one was caught, carried and lost gear. Unreported injuries were sustained and the party called 911, which activated ski patrol from Park City Mountain, as well as a Life Flight helicopter. The skiers were ultimately able to self-rescue. Hardesty said that he does not believe they were stuck for long. 

“I think it went pretty efficiently for those guys. It’s really great that they were able to self rescue and I am glad that injuries and that incident wasn’t worse,” said Hardesty. 

The Utah Avalanche Center has warned of two significant factors in the snowpack that are currently exacerbating the avalanche dangers in the area: wind-drifted snow and a persistent weak layer.

In Thursday’s forecast, Hardesty wrote, “The backcountry is now littered with stiff and stubborn hard slabs of wind drifted snow. Hard slabs have a nasty habit of fracturing well after you’re on the slope. It may be another day or so before these rounded whales settle out and stabilize.” 

Related Stories