Skier is dug out alive by friends

BIG COTTONWOOD CANYON — Four backcountry skiers narrowly escaped an avalanche that buried one of the men for more than 10 minutes Tuesday.

The group was skiing from Little Cottonwood Canyon into Silver Fork Canyon, just below Solitude Ski Resort, when snow in the basin collapsed beneath them and buried Steve Lloyd, 27, of Salt Lake City. Two others avoided the avalanche and one rode part of the way down the mountain with the powerful slide that broke just before 3:30 p.m.

"This is a bit humbling because I knew better," said Jason West, who was able to grab onto a tree and barely miss the massive slide.

Both Lloyd and West were wearing avalanche beacons, which undoubtedly saved Lloyd's life, officials and the skiers said. The three skiers not buried in the avalanche were able to locate Lloyd and dig him out before rescuers could arrive.

"We just had to get to him and get his airway," West said. "That's all I was thinking about. I had to act."

Lloyd remembered losing consciousness and couldn't move when his friends got him out.

"I wiggled my face around for an air pocket and slowed down my breathing," he told media at the hospital. He showed no obvious signs of trauma and said his friends knew how to handle the situation carefully. He was able to ski down the mountain to the AirMed helicopter that later carried him to the University of Utah Medical Center. West was airlifted to the Solitude parking lot, where he was treated for minor injuries.

"I was thinking, crap, I'm in a pretty bad situation right now and I was just really hoping that those guys weren't buried as well," Lloyd said. He was released a little more than an hour after he arrived at the hospital.

"I'm not going to quit skiing," he said. "But this has definitely made me nervous to go back out."

The skiers had performed considerable checks on the slope — including ski cuts and stability tests — knowing that recent weather conditions created a particularly hazardous environment in the backcountry.

More than a foot of new snow, high wind speeds and fast-changing temperatures Tuesday made for an extremely dangerous avalanche day, said Salt Lake County Sheriff's Sgt. Todd Griffiths, who was in a meeting discussing the danger level with other professionals when the call for help was placed via cell phone.

"It's hard to say I was prepared because I shouldn't have been there in the first place," West said. "We just chose to overlook some of the risk factors."