LEARN: 1st Avalanche Death of 2014/15 Video Analysis & Report

This past Wednesday, November 26th, 2014, the USA sadly experienced its first avalanche fatality of the 2014/15 winter season. We’d like to make it our last.

The best way to learn about avalanches is to learn from avalanche accidents. When we analyze avalanche accidents, we can learn what went wrong and why. Armed with this knowledge, we can potentially avoid avalanche hazards in our own lives moving forward.

This video analyzes the avalanche that killed a snowmobiler in the Cooke City, Montana area at about 1:30pm Wednesday, November 26th, 2014. The exact location was on the southwest side of Henderson Mountain in the Miller Creek drainage.

The avalanche was triggered by the victim on a 37º slope, was 3-feet deep, 300-feet wide, and slide 500-vertical-feet downslope. The avalanche slide on a facet layer at the ground.

BRIEF SUMMARY of the AVALANCHE ACCIDENT:

Two snowmobilers were riding north of Cooke City, MT along the Daisy Pass Road under Henderson Mountain just past the turn to the Miller Road. One rode through a gap in the trees to a gully that opened to a 37 degree slope above him. His partner remained on the road. He remotely triggered an avalanche and was buried about 5 feet deep, 100 feet from the road. The avalanche danger was rated HIGH on all slopes and an Avalanche Warning had been issued that day. – Gallatin National Forest Avalanche Center.