Avalanche Incident

Official Reports

Media Reports

Five people killed in Western avalanches

AP - 6.35 a.m. ET (1133 GMT) January 19, 1998

And late Saturday, Cody Dyches was killed in an avalanche near Mount Pleasant south of Salt Lake City. The body of Dyches, who was snowmobiling with friends, was found under 5 feet of snow.

Karl Birkeland, director of the Gallatin National Forest avalanche center in Bozeman, said that because the winter began mildly, an unstable layer is under later heavy snows.

"It's kind of like having a house of cards propping up a snowpack,'' he said. "When the house of cards falls, the legs go out from under it and the snowbank starts tumbling.''

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