On the morning of December 31st, 2024, a solo splitboarder in the Silverfork Canyon area of the Salt Lake mountains triggered an avalanche below Davenport Hill.
The victim was caught, carried, and fully buried under approximately 20 feet of snow. A separate party in Little Cottonwood Canyon noticed the avalanche debris and called it in. Search and rescue teams were quickly dispatched and located the individual using an avalanche transceiver. Despite their efforts, the individual tragically did not survive the accident.
The Utah Avalanche Center just posted this video and a detailed summary of the fatal accident. Our thoughts are with the victim’s family and friends.
Accident and Rescue Summary
Sometime on the morning of December 31, 2024, a solo splitboarder named Reed Heil dropped into north-facing Davenport Hill, in the Silver Fork Drainage of Big Cottonwood Canyon. He was soon caught, carried, and buried twenty feet deep in the avalanche and unfortunately did not survive. Another party skiing the terrain to the south in Little Cottonwood Canyon noticed a single track into fresh avalanche debris and called Alta Central.
This single track dropped off the north side of the ridge into upper Silver Fork, on the rider’s right side of Davenport Hill. The reporting party couldn’t see where the track exited but did see the track covered over by avalanche debris a couple hundred feet below the ridge.
At approximately 12:00 PM, a witness reported the incident to Alta Central, initiating a coordinated response from search teams, including AirMed, DPS, the Utah Department of Transportation, Salt Lake Search and Rescue, Wasatch Backcountry Rescue, Alta Ski Area, and the Utah Avalanche Center.
By early afternoon, search teams opted to use a long-range receiver already in the air following recovery operations from a nearby fatality in Porter Fork. The receiver detected a faint signal, leading Wasatch Backcountry Rescue to survey the area and assess the terrain from the air. Their observations revealed a distinct track entering the avalanche debris without any sign of exit, combined with the signal, strongly suggesting human involvement.
Due to unstable conditions in the surrounding avalanche terrain and the heightened risk of secondary slides, teams determined that initial avalanche mitigation would be required before safely deploying rescuers.
Rescue Summary
Explosive control teams from UDOT working with DPS performed avalanche mitigation and brought down several more large avalanches that subsequently allowed rescuers to access the site.
Helicopters dropped off two teams (four people) at the toe of the debris with an avalanche rescue dog named OC, and one team (two people) was dropped off higher on the debris pile to begin a transceiver search there to the toe of the debris. The secondary avalanches that were triggered with explosives most likely put more debris over the burial site. This was an inevitable part of the rescue process to prevent further harm to the search teams.
The teams converged on a location on the uphill side of a gully feature near the toe (bottom) of the avalanche, where they detected a transceiver signal. The lowest signal they got indicated a depth of 20 feet (6 meters), which was too deep to obtain a probe strike initially. Digging began at 3:30 PM (1530 h), with the transceiver still showing a depth of 6 meters. By 3:55 PM (1555 h), they achieved a probe strike at a depth of 9 feet (2.8 meters).
At this point, another team (three people) skied down from the ridge, conducted a secondary transceiver search of the debris, rejoined the initial party, and began assisting with the excavation. By 4:50 PM (1650 h), the victim was fully excavated and extracted from the hole. The team immediately initiated chest compressions before transferring the patient to an AirMed helicopter, which transported them off-site.
The rescue teams found the individual using an avalanche transceiver; he was buried approximately 20 feet down from the snow surface. The victim was buried in a terrain trap and was pushed up a south-facing gully feature. There was approximately 3 feet (1m) of snow below his burial location.
Terrain Summary
This avalanche occurred on a north-facing slope in upper Silver Fork. The crown face was between 9,800 and 9,900 feet and approximately 400 feet wide. The toe of the debris was approximately 9,500 feet in elevation, and slope angles ranged from 35 degrees to well over 40 degrees in steepness. The victim skied off the ridge into a run called Easy Does It and underneath a run called Over Easy. The primary avalanche involved the Over Easy avalanche path. The secondary avalanches included the remainder of Over Easy, and the steeper terrain of Easy Does It.