Teen victim of avalanche is identified

Authorities have released the name of a 15-year-old snowmobiler from Wyoming who died Monday afternoon after being caught in an avalanche in a remote part of Summit County.

"He was a fun and loving young man," said Grant Redden, describing Hayden Ellingford. Redden, bishop of the family's ward in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said Ellingford "didn't have too much to say, but he was always smiling and loving toward his family."

The teen was snowmobiling with his father and two brothers 43 miles from their home in Evanston when a 550-foot-wide avalanche sloughed away from the mountainside above him and buried him in 7 feet of snow for about 90 minutes.

Ellingford, the youngest of three boys and an avid snowmobiler, won second place in a junior division world championship snowmobiling race nine months ago at the Rocky Mountain Snowmobile Hill Climb Association in Jackson Hole, Wyo.

"I've heard of him around here," said Tod Martin, salesman for Renegade Sports, an all-terrain vehicle dealer, in Logan. "He was really an up and coming racer. His whole family was known among snowmobilers."

He was riding just below the Humpy Peak, 18 miles from Oakley, on a "dangerous 40-degree slope" when the snow gave way and ran about 1,000 feet down the mountainside, said Summit County Sheriff's Sgt. Nick Wilkinson. "And considering that snow just barely hangs on at 38 degrees, this was just ready to go."

The boy's father and brothers were without an avalanche beacon, shovel and probe, said Wilkinson. "They didn't have a cell phone to call for help."

Summit County law enforcement officers received a call from someone on the mountain about the boy being caught just after 4 p.m. Wyoming's Uintah County Sheriff's officials were some of the first responders on scene, along with Utah's Summit County Search and Rescue team.

The 90-minute search could have been longer if it hadn't been for one of the boy's boots that had fallen off in the blast of snow that indicated his general location, Wilkinson said.

"The family is just real shaken up," Redden said. "His dad naturally feels like he should have been there, closer, to protect his son. ... It's so hard to lose a child, but they have great faith he's in the hands of our Heavenly Father."