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LONE PEAK CANYON — The bodies of two skiers killed in an avalanche near Lone Peak Summit were recovered and moved off the mountain Friday.
The men were hoisted out by helicopter and brought to a staging area on Wasatch Drive about 10 a.m., where family members of the victims had gathered. The Utah State Medical Examiner's Office then took the bodies to its headquarters.
"It's just a tough, tragic incident," Salt Lake County Sheriff Rosie Rivera said.
The deceased men were identified Friday as Andrew Cameron, 23 from Utah, and Austin Mallet, 32, from Montana. The name of the lone survivor was not released.
Unified police say search and rescue crews started about 6 a.m. Friday to recover the bodies of two men who had become buried in an avalanche while skiing in the Big Willow area in Lone Peak Canyon, near Lone Peak Summit, just off Little Cottonwood Canyon. A third man was partially buried but was able to dig himself out and call for help on Thursday.
Police say the three men were very experienced backcountry skiers and had hiked to the area.
"They had switched from skiing to boot packing and were near the top when the avalanche occurred," according to the Utah Avalanche Center. "The person in the lead was caught and carried downhill on the looker's right side of a ridge or fin of rock. That person was partially buried and was able to self-extricate. The other two were caught and carried downhill on the looker's left side of the ridge feature. Those two were fully buried and unfortunately did not survive."
The center says the slide occurred at an elevation of 10,600 feet. It was approximately 500 feet long, 250 feet wide and 2 feet deep.
Crews were able to confirm Thursday afternoon the two missing men were deceased. However, because of a storm front with rain, snow and strong wind moving through the area, they were unable to get to the victims because of unstable conditions and fear of triggering another avalanche, Rivera said.
The sheriff's office on Friday said the conditions on top of the mountain had significantly improved and several crews, both from the ground and some being transported by a helicopter, helped recover the bodies. The recovery effort went fairly quickly, she said, thanks, in part, to information provided by the third man who survived. That man was released from the hospital on Thursday.
Alan Bergstrom, one of the squad leaders for Friday's recovery and a former commander of Salt Lake County Search and Rescue, says his crews were able to dig out the victims, who were buried in about 2 to 3 feet of snow, fairly quickly.
He says before search teams went onto the mountain on Friday, they set a deadline of 10 a.m. to recover the victims. He said they would then reevaluate the weather to determine whether it was still safe to continue. Bergstrom said, fortunately, the last rescuers got off the mountain right at 10 a.m.
Bergstrom says it was a tragic incident and offered his condolences to the victims' families, while also complimenting his team for being able to complete their operation which was both physically and mentally challenging.
"We do our job, stay focused on them and go home and hug our family," he said.
Due to the unusual late-season storm this week, Bergstrom called it a "peculiar situation" with the snow in the area, and believes the victims were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The sheriff also called it a "very tough day" for everyone and offered her prayers for the victims' families.
"I can't even imagine what they're going through right now," she said.
