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The Associated Press
Salt Lake City

Avalanche kills 4 backcountry skiers in Utah

Search and rescue crews at an emergency scene
Salt Lake County Sheriff Search and Rescue crews respond to the top of Millcreek Canyon where four skiers died in an avalanche on Saturday near Salt Lake City. Four other skiers were injured, authorities said.
Francisco Kjolseth | Salt Lake Tribune via AP

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Four backcountry skiers died when one of the deadliest avalanches in Utah history hit a popular backcountry skiing area, police said Sunday.

Four other people were also buried in the Saturday slide but managed to dig themselves out and didn’t suffer serious injuries, according to Unified Police of Salt Lake County.

The skiers were from two separate groups, and all eight had prepared with the necessary avalanche safety gear, authorities said.

The four killed were all in their 20s and from the Salt Lake City area, not far the spot where they were swept up by the skier-trigged avalanche in Millcreek Canyon.

“Our backcountry outdoor community is very connected so this type of loss touches many people and really is heartbreaking,” said Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson.

Three of the deceased were identified as Salt Lake City residents: Louis Holian and Stephanie Hopkins, both 26, and Thomas Louis Steinbrecher, 23. The fourth, 29-year-old Sarah Moughamian, was from the suburb of Sandy, Utah.

They were experienced skiers who were well known in the community, Drew Hardesty with the Utah Avalanche Center told the Salt Lake Tribune. The avalanche danger around Salt Lake was high on Saturday, the center said as it tweeted out a warning hours before the avalanche.

A faint distress call alerted police to the slide shortly before noon on Saturday. The survivors found their four companions and dug them out, but they were already dead, police said.

The avalanche was “incredibly wide,” Wilson said, and still-unstable snow conditions kept rescuers from immediately recovering the bodies Saturday. Recovery operations resumed Sunday morning.

Avalanches have also claimed other lives in recent days: the bodies of three hikers were found near Anchorage, Alaska, on Thursday. In Colorado, four backcountry skiers have died in two separate slides in the past week.

Avalanche forecasters and search-and-rescue groups have been worried for weeks that more people would be venturing into the backcountry to avoid crowds and reservation systems at ski resorts during the coronavirus pandemic.