Forest Service Utah Avalanche Center

Accident Report Forest Service Utah Avalanche Center

Saturday, December 11, 2004

Mineral Fork - Two Snowshoers killed

Provisional report by Bruce Tremper - last updated 12-25-2004

Location:

Mineral Fork in Big Cottonwood Canyon just east of Salt Lake City, Utah

Accident Summary:

Two snowshoers were reported as overdue when they failed to return from a walk up Mineral Fork on Saturday, December 11^th. Victim are Bruce Quint, 59, and Melvin Dennis, 37, both from Salt Lake City.

Rescue Summary:

Saturday night, two skiers from Salt Lake Country Search and Rescue followed snowshoe tracks to the base of a large headwall at the upper end of Mineral Fork where the tracks disappear under fresh avalanche debris and did not appear again on the other side. The two snowshoers were the first people to travel up Mineral Fork after the large storm, which ended two days earlier. Searchers could find no beacon signals in the debris, nor visual clues. Neither of the victims wore beacons. In consultation with several avalanche experts, including one who flew over the area in a helicopter that night, they decided that conditions were too dangerous to bring in a larger team of searchers that night.

On Sunday morning personnel from Wasatch Powderbird Guides controlled the area with explosives, which triggered widespread avalanches in remainder of the canyon as well as hang fire above the accident site. They flew teams of rescuers to the site including Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Search and Rescue, Wasatch Backcountry Rescue, a volunteer group of ski area personnel operating under the Salt Lake County Sheriff. The helicopter was from Utah Highway Patrol. They searched the area using trained avalanche rescue dogs and probed areas where the dogs indicated interest. At 11:30, they found Melvin Dennis buried about four feet deep and more-or-less in line with the tracks which entered the debris. They found the second victim Bruce Quint, on Monday, December 13, 2004 around 10:00 am about 25 yards uphill from the first victim and buried over eight feet deep. Both victims appeared to have been simply pushed over by the debris and buried without being tumbled and were probably buried fairly near their initial positions.

Avalanche Data:

The avalanche was a very large, hard-slab avalanche, which fractured out the lower third of the northeast-facing slope hanging above them. As near as we can tell, it fractured about 2-3 feet deep, 400 feet wide and descended 800 vertical feet. The dimensions of the original avalanche was hard to determine precicely because the area was controlled by helicopter-delivered explosives before rescuers could safely go into the area. Subsequent control avalanched all the remaining snow above the fracture line as well as much most of the adjacent avalanche paths. The debris was about 300 feet wide and averaged 6 feet deep, but is much deeper in places. The elevation of the upper fracture was around 9,000’ and the toe of the debris was 8,200’. The slab was composed of dense, new snow and wind-blown snow mostly deposited December 8-9. The weak layer was an extremely weak layer of near-surface faceted snow and surface hoar formed during three weeks of clear weather in November and early December. My examination of the snowpack in the area showed that the snow was still quite unstable and I could barely isolate a column in several different snow pit tests (CTE 2, Q1) which means compression test easy with a score of 2 out of 30 with a clean, easy shear. There is no way to know whether the snowshoers triggered the avalanche, but conditions were certainly conducive as they were on gentle a gentle slope directly at the base of the large, steep slope above, which avalanched. See Photos. See Snow Profile Graphic. See Map.

Weather History:

Northern Utah experienced a huge snow storm with very strong winds on December 8^th and 9^thwith snow lingering into the morning of the 10^th. This overloaded the buried weak layers and combined with a rapid temperature rise produced widespread avalanche activity during the storm. An avalanche warning was in effect for the December 8-10th but was allowed to expire at midnight before the accident. The danger rating was rated as HIGH on the day before the accident and was downgraded to CONSIDERABLE to HIGH on the day of the accident. Our forecast for the day included a very strongly worded warning for backcountry travelers to stay off of and out from underneath any slope steeper than about 30 degrees.

Media Reports

Article Last Updated: 12/13/2004 03:49 AM

Lost hiker's body found; second is presumed dead

By Jason Bergreen
The Salt Lake Tribune
Salt Lake Tribune

BIG COTTONWOOD CANYON - Friends and family were optimistic Bruce Quint would be found alive until searchers Sunday recovered the body of his hiking partner from an avalanche site in Big Cottonwood Canyon.
    Quint and Melvin Denis were reported missing Saturday evening when they failed to return from snowshoeing near Mineral Fork.
    The body of Denis, a 32-year-old University of Utah medical student, was found about 11:30 a.m. Sunday by a search and rescue dog. He was buried in 3 to 5 feet of snow, where helicopter searchers had spotted snowshoe tracks the day before.
   Denis' girlfriend, Alison Schiffern, and members of Quint's family hugged and comforted one another near the side of the mountain Sunday where searchers had set up a command post. The news of Denis' death put a damper on any hope of finding Quint alive.
    "I think he's been lost," Quint family friend Drew Hall said. "We're all pretty realistic about what's happened. We were optimistic until they found Mel's body."
   Quint's brother-in-law Norman Le Fevre echoed Hall.
   "We've lost two wonderful people," Le Fevre said. "I assume we've lost Bruce."
    Saturday's avalanche occurred at an altitude of about 9,400 feet. It was about 3 1/2 miles from the nearest road and was about 300 feet wide, Salt Lake County sheriff's Sgt. Rosie Rivera said.
    The conditions in the Wasatch Mountains have made the area prone to avalanches, and Denis' death was the third confirmed avalanche death in Utah since Friday.
    The area was so dangerous rescuers ignited 45 explosions to trigger potential avalanches before beginning the main search about 10:45 a.m. Sunday morning, Rivera said.
    Denis and Quint were training Saturday for a May hike up Shisma Pangma, a 26,000-foot mountain in the Himalayas, when the avalanche fell. They did not have avalanche beacons.
   Quint was the executive director of Community Development Corp. of Utah, which builds homes in Salt Lake City for low-income families, Hall said.
   "He was very outgoing, tough, adventurous and hard-charging," he said.
   About 20 members of Wasatch Backcountry Rescue and six dogs participated in Saturday's search. Three helicopters, two from local ski resorts and one from the Utah Highway Patrol, ferried the men and dogs to the avalanche area.
   Terri Quint, Bruce's wife of 12 years, managed a smile and held back tears as she patted search dogs and thanked rescuers returning around 4 p.m. from the avalanche site. Her husband's probable death had not sunk in.
   "I'm still numb," she said. "This isn't real. I want to say 'OK, Bruce, time to come down.' "
   The Quints were close friends of Denis' and considered him a family member.
   Born in Cuba, Denis moved to Florida with his parents at a young age, Terri Quint said. She knows because she was Denis' English teacher at Coral Gables High School in Miami.
   "He was a terrific guy," she said. "He was like a son to my husband."
   Terri Quint lost track of Denis in 1992 after moving with Bruce to Salt Lake County, where the couple were married.
   In a twist of fate, the Quints were watching a football game between the Miami Dolphins and the Buffalo Bills last season at The Fiddler's Elbow and ran into Denis. He was living in Salt Lake City and attending the University of Utah, where he was working on his Ph.D. in vascular medicine.
   "I said, 'Oh my goodness, you were one of my students,' and we just hugged," Terri Quint remembers.
   From then on, Bruce Quint and Denis, who both loved the outdoors, began spending a lot of time together.
   "They were both big talkers, readers and thinkers," Terri Quint said.
   Bruce had a Ph.D. in psychology and would have turned 60 in January.
   "Bruce wanted to leave a legacy. Everybody who knew him said he would have wanted to go this way instead of in a nursing home. This was a little too soon," she said holding back tears.
   Denis had no family in Utah, Terri Quint said. His mother lives in Florida.
   Denis' girlfriend, Schiffern, is devastated, Terri Quint said.
   Denis was only six months from receiving his Ph.D. and was planning to move into a new house next week, Terri Quint said. He was scheduled to become a U.S. citizen on Wednesday.
   Rescues crews will resume their search for Quint today, Rivera said.
   jbergreen@sltrib.com

Deseret Morning News, Monday, December 13, 2004

Kin grieve as slides' toll likely will hit 4

One missing; one body found; snowmobiler dies

By Laura Hancock
Deseret Morning News

The Salt Lake County home of Bruce and Terri Quint was packed Sunday night with friends who were hoping he would walk through the door and laugh at them for worrying about him.

Terri Quint, in red jacket; Lynn Schiffern, in black jacket; and Alison Schiffern, Melvin Denis' girlfriend; await search results.

Michael Brandy, Deseret Morning News

Quint, 59, had gone missing on Saturday while snowshoeing with a friend, 32-year-old Melvin Denis of Salt Lake City.

Authorities said an avalanche barreled through the Mineral Fork area of Big Cottonwood Canyon on Saturday.

They recovered Denis' body under 3 to 5 feet of snow about 11:30 a.m. Sunday, Salt Lake County Sheriff's Sgt. Rosie Rivera said.

Friends gathered at the Quint house were shocked.

"They never happen to anyone you know," friend Cecil Thompson said. "Maybe someone you know of, not someone you talk to."

Denis was the third person confirmed to have been killed by avalanches over the weekend. If it is confirmed that Quint did not survive, Utah's early season toll will already have matched last season's total of four avalanche fatalities.

On Friday, Zachary Eastman, 23, Salt Lake City, was killed by an avalanche while backcountry skiing above Brighton and Solitude.

On Saturday, a snowmobiler was killed by an avalanche in Wasatch County near the Duchesne County line. His identity was not released by the Wasatch County Sheriff's Office on Sunday, according to dispatchers.

In the mountains above Davis County, a 27-year-old man was buried by an avalanche Saturday. He survived after a friend and passer-by dug him out. Three people on snow machines were caught and carried in an avalanche near Logan's Mount Naomi, but they survived.

Bruce Tremper, director of the U.S. Forest Service's Utah Avalanche Center, said the recent avalanche activity has been unusual.

He has worked 15 hours a day for about a week straight walking on snow, investigating avalanches, taking pictures and forecasting avalanche danger.

The conditions that have spawned recent avalanches include a weak layer of older mountain snow smothered by 2 to 4 feet of dense new snow on Wednesday and Thursday that contained 4 to 7 inches of water. That was compounded with winds with an hourly average of 40 mph and gusts of 60 mph and temperatures that rose dramatically on Friday and Saturday.

"It's kind of like putting a brick down on a pile of potato chips," Tremper said.

The weak layer of snow easily gave away, sweeping the new snow with it.

Avalanches often rumble downhill naturally, but the avalanches of the past several days most likely were human-triggered and unusually large.

"What shocked me was how (the mountain snow) just waited there and just waited for someone to give it a thump. And when they do, they trigger very large avalanches," Tremper said.

Tremper said Quint and Denis were the first people in the Mineral Fork area after the fresh snow.

The avalanche was 400-600 feet wide. The top fractured at 9,600 feet elevation. The bottom was 8,200 feet, making the avalanche 1,400 vertical feet, Tremper said.

Denis, an immigrant to Florida from Cuba as a child, was studying at the University of Utah in a program offering joint medical and doctorate degrees.

He was a promise for the future to people who knew him.

"Young, smart, handsome and extraordinarily nice, and it's just that he could have been the son to any one of us," Thompson said.

Terri Quint, Bruce's wife, was a high school English teacher in Miami and taught Denis. The teacher and student lost touch for years, but they ran into each other after both had moved to Utah. Denis became close to Bruce Quint, Thompson said.

"They went hiking and snowshoeing and that sort of thing. Bruce was in training for a planned climb for the highest mountain in China," Thompson said, and Denis was training with him, helping him build endurance.

Quint is the executive director of the Community Development Corp. of Utah, which helps low-income people own affordable housing through construction projects.

Denis and Quint went snowshoeing Saturday morning and were supposed to return that afternoon. When they were late, Terri Quint called the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office, Rivera said.

A crew in a Utah Department of Public Safety helicopter spotted the Mineral Fork avalanche from above, and a search and rescue effort began. The search was canceled about midnight because of avalanche danger.

Crews resumed their search Sunday morning after explosives were used to trigger other potential avalanches in the area. A search dog helped find Denis' body. The search for Quint was called off at 4 p.m. and is expected to begin again about 8 a.m. today, Rivera said.

The U.S. Forest Service categorizes avalanche danger in five levels: low, moderate, considerable, high and extreme.

On Thursday it ranged from high to extreme in Utah's mountains. On Friday it was high. On Saturday it was considerable to high and on Sunday it was considerable, although a bulletin was issued stating that in the mountains of northern Utah and extreme southeast Idaho, "human-triggered avalanches remain probable on most slopes and avalanches will be unusually large."

"Backcountry travellers should continue to avoid avalanche terrain today," the Sunday statement continued, except for "ski areas and highways where avalanche control is normally done."

Avalanche danger is announced each morning and available at www.avalanche.org or by calling 801-364-1581. There is no way to forecast avalanches for the entire winter season because a lot of it has to do with weather, which can only be predicted about 10 days ahead, Tremper said.

E-mail: lhancock@desnews.com

Article Last Updated: 12/14/2004 03:26 AM

Searchers wrest another body from mountain

By Lisa Rosetta
The Salt Lake Tribune
Salt Lake Tribune

The body of the second of two snowshoers killed in a massive avalanche Saturday in Big Cottonwood Canyon was recovered Monday morning.
    It took searchers and dogs, who began working at 9:10 a.m., about an hour to find Bruce Quint in Mineral Fork Basin, said Sgt. Rosie Rivera, Salt Lake County sheriff's spokeswoman. The body was beneath 9 feet of snow.
    Quint, 59, and a friend, Melvin Denis, 32, were in the basin training for a May hike up Shisma Pangma, a 26,000-foot mountain in the Himalayas, when they were engulfed by the avalanche.
    Denis' body was found Sunday morning near the base of the 300-foot-wide slide. Quint's body, along with part of a bent ski pole and a clear plastic water bladder, was found about 200 feet upslope.
    Dean Cardinale, president of Wasatch Backcountry Rescue, said trees 6 to 8 inches in diameter were among the debris found in the slide, an indicator of its strength.
    "That's no match for a human body," Cardinale said.
    At about 6:30 p.m. Saturday, after Quint and Denis were reported missing, a helicopter canvassing the Mineral Fork Basin area saw signs of an avalanche, Rivera said. The searchers also found the men's tracks and marked them with a GPS unit, in case a second avalanche broke loose and covered them.
    Salt Lake County and Wasatch Backcountry Rescue teams postponed their ground search until Sunday morning, when the area was stabilized by setting off blasts to dislodge any other dangerous snow. The avalanche that killed Quint and Denis on Saturday fell on a 70-degree slope.
   Drew Hall, a close friend of Quint's, was with searchers when they dug out his body, said Dave Memmott, also a friend of Quint's. Hall helped carry Quint to the medical examiner's SUV from the helicopter after it flew in and landed. As the chopper ferried searchers from the avalanche site in pairs, dropping them off on the road, Quint's wife, Terri Quint, was waiting for them. She thanked each searcher with a hug and a kiss.
    When Midas - the German shepherd that located Quint - arrived with his handlers, Quint's family greeted them with applause. Terri Quint stooped to her knees, hugged Midas and stroked his coat.
    "I've said something to every single [searcher]," she said. "The dogs, the men - they're so courageous and wonderful."
    Midas worked tirelessly alongside searchers Sunday to find Denis, Cardinale said. Despite fatigue and a sore paw, he resumed work Monday to continue the search for Quint. After Midas picked up Quint's scent, searchers followed with probes to find him.
    "[Midas] makes me proud every day," Cardinale said. "He's never let us down."
    Quint was the executive director of Community Development Corp. of Utah, which builds homes in Salt Lake City for low-income families. He was an avid outdoorsman who will be remembered for "his love of life," his wife of 12 years said.
    Though Terri Quint was grateful her husband was found, "I would not have been that upset had they not found him," she said. The mountains, which Quint loved so much, would have been an appropriate resting place.
    A memorial service will be held for Quint on Wednesday at the Salt Lake City Library auditorium from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. His ashes will be spread at the top of Snowbird, his wife said.
    He is survived by three sons, two step-daughters and eight grandchildren.
    Denis was a doctoral candidate at the University of Utah, where he had been selected as the first student in the M.D./Ph.D. program.
    "He had just an incredible thirst for life and an incredible ambition to really make important discoveries in medicine and science," said Dean Li, an assistant director of the program. "When you create a program like this, you want to start it with people like him, because you know that not only will he succeed, but the program and people around him would as well."
    Funeral services for Denis, who had immigrated to Florida from Cuba via South America, will be in Miami later this week.
    Sometime in the new year, U. officials are hoping to honor Denis in a memorial service and plan to invite his mother, "whom he lived for," said John Weis, professor of pathology at the U.
    Weis is now working to make sure Denis' mother can proudly - and accurately - refer to her late son as "Dr. Denis."
    "All he had left to do was sit back and cross the t's and dot the i's," Weis said. "He's earned it, so he should have it."
    Weis said Denis was "an inspiration. He believed in the good life education can bring, because he knew what it was like not to have education," Weis said. "These kinds of stories, they're the stories my father used to tell me about the 1920s - but damn it, they're out there every day."
    Quint and Denis were among five people buried in avalanches in Utah over the weekend.
    The others were:
   * Zachary Eastman, 23, of Salt Lake County, who died Friday while backcountry skiing in Big Cottonwood Canyon.
   * Troy Tolbert, 42, of Alpine, who died Saturday while snowmobiling in the Trout Creek area near Strawberry Reservoir in Wasatch County.
   * Ben DeJong, 27, of Bountiful, who was buried by an avalanche Saturday while snowmobiling in Farmington Canyon. He was rescued by a friend and survived.
    lrosetta@sltrib.com.
    ---
   Tribune reporter Matthew D. LaPlante contributed to this story.

    Judging the terrain
   for avalanche danger
   l Steepness. Almost all
   avalanches occur on slopes
   between 35 and 45 degrees.
   Slopes less than 30 degrees
   seldom produce avalanches
   and slopes steeper than 50
   degrees tend not to build up
   into slabs. A black diamond
   slope at a ski resort is usually
   around 35 degrees.
   l Anchors. Trees and rocks
   that stick up through the
   snowpack can help to hold the
   snowpack in place. But the
   anchors need to be fairly
   thick to be effective.
   l Direction the slope faces.
   The direction a slope faces is
   very important. North-facing
   shady slopes usually produce
   more avalanches.
   l Consequences. What could
   happen to you if the slope
   slides? It's difficult to survive
   an avalanche if it strains you
   through trees, dumps you
   over a cliff or deposits you
   into a gully.
   Source: Utah Avalanche Center

Deseret Morning News, Tuesday, December 14, 2004

Snowshoer's body recovered; another victim is identified

By Pat Reavy
Deseret Morning News

BIG COTTONWOOD CANYON — Bruce Quint was a man who lived life to its fullest. Family and friends remember him as being a great athlete, gentle-hearted and having a great mind.

Terri Quint is comforted Monday as she learns that searchers have recovered the body of her husband.

Jason Olson, Deseret Morning News

Monday, Salt Lake County search and rescue crews recovered Quint's body, which was buried in an avalanche while he was snowshoeing Saturday near Mineral Fork.

"If he had scripted his leave, this is the way he would have done it," said Quint's brother-in-law, Norman Le Fevre.

Quint, 59, and Melvin Denis, 32, were snowshoeing Saturday afternoon when they were buried in a slide about 5 p.m. Denis' body was recovered Sunday.

Searchers found Quint's body at 10:25 a.m., just an hour and 15 minutes into Monday's search. He was buried under 9 feet of snow about 100 feet away from where Denis was found.

The recovery of Quint's body brought to a close a deadly weekend in Utah's mountains. Since Friday, avalanches killed four people and injured one.

Also Monday, authorities released the name of a snowmobiler who died in an avalanche Saturday in the Trout Creek area of Wasatch County.

Russell "Troy" Tolbert, 42, Alpine, died after he became stuck in the backcountry near Trout Creek and an avalanche came roaring down on top of him.

Friends and family members gathered at the command post along Big Cottonwood Canyon Road on Monday morning as they waited for Quint's body to be recovered. When the Department of Public Safety helicopter landed with his body, one of Quint's sons, a brother-in-law and a friend unloaded him from the chopper and placed him into the back of a waiting truck from the Utah state medical examiner.

Family members, including Quint's wife, Terri, then waited for the rescuers to come off the mountain to personally thank them for finding the body of their loved one.

Midis, a 5-year-old German shepherd, was the K9 that found Quint. He also found Denis the day before.

Rescuers also found a small piece of Quint's bent ski pole and presented it to his wife. The family said his body will be cremated and his ashes spread over Snowbird, Quint's favorite place.

Friends and family members assist rescue workers as they transfer Bruce Quint's body from a helicopter to a waiting truck on Monday.

Jason Olson, Deseret Morning News

Terri Quint said her husband was living on what she called a "5-year plan" where his goal was to live life to its fullest, although she never thought he would pass away until he was in his 90s.

"He was doing exactly what he loved," she said. "He wanted to leave a legacy, and he did. This is a loss to everyone."

Quint said the snowshoeing expedition was actually part of her husband's training. He was planning on scaling China's highest mountain in May.

In addition to being athletic, Terri Quint said her husband will be remembered for having a brilliant mind, being a great philosopher and being nonjudgmental toward others.

"If you had a problem, everybody went to Bruce," she said.

Quint, executive director of the Community Development Corp. of Utah, had a Ph.D. in philosophy and was a big supporter of low-income housing.

But while many agree that Quint lived his life to the fullest, they say Denis' life was much too short.

Terri Quint said Denis was like their adopted son. Denis was Quint's student in 10th grade when they both lived in Miami, she said. About a year-and-a-half ago, they bumped into each other in Sugar House after not seeing each other for 15 years.

Since then, Quint said her husband and Denis were nearly inseparable.

Denis was an immigrant to Florida from Cuba. He was currently studying for joint medical and doctorate degrees at the University of Utah.

Tolbert, an avid outdoorsman, family man and homebuilder, had gone with his friend and neighbor Keith Clark for a day of snowmobiling. It was a favorite activity that he tried to do at least once a week during the winter, his 19-year-old daughter, Candace Tolbert, said.

After Troy Tolbert became stuck in the snow, Clark went around the hill to come down from above and help free him. But as he came around, he saw the avalanche break free, Troy Tolbert's father-in-law, Tom Nixon, said. Clark, who watched his friend get buried in the snow, was unavailable for comment.

"He loved the outdoors. He loved motorcycles, four-wheeling, camping, and he loved boating," Candace Tolbert said of her father.

"I used to go with him a lot," Nixon said. "He was an excellent rider."

Troy Tolbert was a general contractor and owner of the Hallmark home company. He built houses in Salt Lake and Utah valleys.

Contributing: Rodger Hardy and Laura Hancock; E-mail: preavy@desnews.com