Hi All,
Yesterday's huge avalanche has so far claimed 5 people, and there have been no recoveries yet. This morning they started looking again. Here is a shot of Dutch's Draw out my window this morning. This is only 1/2 the slide; I could not photograph the other side to the right of the trees. Here is what it looks like

WOW! That is a huge slab!

Oh yeah mon it was huge ... about 300-400 yards wide. The victims are under and estimated 30 feet of snow. I think they will not be recovered until the spring. I saw lots of effort today trying to probe for them but in reality there is no way they will be found.

Crush is this out of Bounds? What is this area? (Locals skiing, heliskiing, etc.)

Yes Roy it is out of bounds and is part of the Forest Service's Wastach Cache but .... all you have to do is go up the 9990 life at The Canyons and as you get off the lift go out the gate to the left and with a short walk you are there at the top. I have noticed that some people go right into the backcountry without any knowledge or sense. They go alone, without a beeper, without experience, and in this case without sense as the UT avalanche forecast was saying all week not to go out and if you have to stay away from slopes over 30 degrees regardless of orientation. But they do anyways.

I heard a report that said these people did not have beacons. Probably didn't have any other equipment either.

I'll be at the Canyons on Jan 29th and my whole group was feaking out about the avalanches in the resort and how dangerous it was going to be to ski the blue runs. I love overreactions.