Avalanche and Winter Backcountry Safety

A 31‑year‑old snowmobiler, Nicholas Bringhurst of Springville, Utah, was killed Sunday when a rider‑triggered avalanche buried him about two feet deep in the LaBarge Creek area of western Wyoming, according to the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office and the Bridger‑Teton Avalanche Center. A friend located him, dug him out and began CPR, but he died at the scene; the coroner will determine the official cause of death. CBS links the incident to two other fatal avalanches in recent days — a slide near Longs Pass in Washington that killed backcountry skiers Paul Markoff and Erik Henne, and a snowmobiler burial in California’s Sierra Nevada that killed 42‑year‑old Chris Scott Thomason — bringing this month’s U.S. avalanche death count to at least four. The National Avalanche Center notes that a typical winter sees 25–30 avalanche fatalities nationwide and currently rates Utah and Washington at 'high risk' and parts of California, Colorado, Idaho and Wyoming at 'considerable risk,' a warning to U.S. backcountry skiers and snowmobilers that small but steep slopes can still be deadly in the current snowpack.