SALT LAKE CITY -- A Wyoming man was killed Friday after being buried in an avalanche in the Uinta Mountains, the Summit County Sheriff's Office says.
The man has been identified as 54-year-old Dennis Barnes, of Evanston, Wyo., said Summit County Sheriff's Detective Ronald Bridge.
The slide was reported just after 2 p.m. through authorities in Uinta County, Wyo., he said.
The avalanche occurred in the popular snowmobiling area called "Superbowl" in the Moffit Basin of the Wasatch-Cache National Forest, near the Utah-Wyoming border.
Barnes was snowmobiling with four friends when the slide occurred, Bridge said.
A medical helicopter sent to the scene located Barnes, and its medical team pronounced him dead before Summit County search and rescue teams could reach the area, Bridge said.
The Utah Avalanche Center on Friday had forecast avalanche conditions in the High Uinta Wilderness at Level 3, or considerable.
Strong winds and heavy snow that fell earlier this week on an already weakened snowpack contributed to the Level 3 rating, said Craig Gordon, a forecaster with the Utah Avalanche Center.
"Combining those conspires against us," he said regarding avalanche danger in the Western Uinta Mountains.
The avalanche danger for Ogden, Logan and Salt Lake City-area mountains today remains at Level 2, or moderate, on any slope approaching 35 degrees or steeper with recent deposits of wind-drifted snow, which is found mainly near the upper elevation ridges.
Comments