A 15-year-old Wyoming boy died Monday when a giant avalanche buried him in the Uinta Mountains east of Kamas, the authorities said.
The slide, which was nearly 600 feet wide, buried Evanston resident Hayden Ellingford in about seven feet of snow after carrying the boy about 1,000 feet into a grove of trees, Summit County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Nick Wilkinson said.
"He was snowmobiling with his father and his two brothers and they didn’t have avalanche beacons or probes," Wilkinson said in a telephone interview Tuesday.
The group was riding snowmobiles about eight miles west of Bear River Service when the slide triggered in the Windy Ridge/Moffit Basin area of the Wasatch-Cache National Forest at about 4 p.m., Wilkinson said.
"When you’re back there, you have to save yourself," he said, adding that avalanche danger in the Uinta Mountains Monday was high.