Morning drive is slippery

Even though there were fewer cars than usual on the road thanks to the holiday, Monday's morning commute still had plenty of accidents due to an early morning cold front.

The Utah Highway Patrol responded to more than 60 accidents in Salt Lake County from 6:30 to 11:30 a.m. Forty-eight of those crashes resulted in damage to a vehicle, and nine resulted in injury.

In Utah County, troopers responded to about 50 accidents on the freeway with 23 of those causing damage to a vehicle and just two resulting in injuries. None of the injuries in any accident Monday morning were serious, according to the UHP.

The Wasatch Front had anywhere from 3 to 10 inches of snow Monday morning, said Pete Wilensky, lead forecaster for the National Weather Service in Salt Lake City. The Millcreek and Sandy areas were hit the hardest in Salt Lake County, with each registering at least 6 inches of snow by 9 a.m., according to the National Weather Service.

In Utah County, Spanish Fork had nearly 10 inches of snow. But the forecast called for a return to milder temperatures by today.

"Most of what fell will be melting," Wilensky said.

The Utah Avalanche Forecast Center listed avalanche hazard for most of the state as "considerable" Monday and it is expected to remain that way today. That means natural avalanches in the backcountry are possible and human-triggered avalanches on slopes with a steepness of at least 35 degrees are probable, according to the avalanche center.

Six people have been killed in avalanches in Utah, Montana and Idaho since Saturday. The latest was a 17-year-old boy from Massachusetts who died in an avalanche in Hell's Canyon, an out-of-bounds area near Snowbasin Ski Resort, Sunday. The boy's name is expected to be released today.

A Richfield man was killed in an avalanche on Cove Mountain Saturday. Monday, the Sevier County Sheriff's Office released the man's name.

Michael Pendleton, 44, was climbing the back side of Signal Peak on his snowmobile when he triggered a slide approximately 150 feet long and 80 feet wide. Pendleton was found buried under 8 feet of snow.

Also Saturday, 16-year-old Zachary Bryant Holmes of Farr West was killed after being caught in an avalanche while snowmobiling in the Wasatch-Cache National Forest near Woodland, Wasatch County.

Three other snowmobilers were killed in avalanches Saturday in Montana and Idaho.