From Deseret News archives:
Avalanche teaches the hard way
About Utah
All the while, the snow-covered mountains just out-of-reach beyond the picture window taunt him — a crowning insult for a 21-year-old who loves to ski.
Still, there is one overarching reason for Matt to remain totally upbeat: He's alive.
In contrast to the distressing and mounting roll call of people whose lives have been claimed by avalanches since winter arrived in earnest in mid-December — already, four people have died in Utah avalanches and three skiers have died while skiing inbounds at resorts in the West — Matt is still around to talk about his avalanche encounter.
He spells out the two primary reasons for this.
"Incredible luck" is one. "Well-prepared friends" is the other.
He openly acknowledges the "poor decision" he made when he veered off the ridgeline of a peak called Square Top along the spine of the Wasatch Range to take some turns through fresh powder just after the lunch hour on Dec. 14.
"I made a turn farther down the ridge than I should have," says Matt. "It was too steep and the early-season snowpack made it unstable."
Within seconds, the snow above began to slide, quickly engulfing him on all sides before shooting him like a runaway elevator into a stand of fir trees overlooking Red Pine Lake.
Says Matt, "I have taken avalanche education classes, I've watched avalanches break loose on opposite ridges, but there is no way to relay the feel and experience any other way than being caught in one. It was so powerful. It was like getting hit by a train. And mine was not a particularly large one."
Matt broke two vertebrae, fractured his pelvis and ripped apart the ligaments in one knee, but that wasn't his initial problem.
His initial problem was getting out of the snow, which held him as captive as cement from his waist down.
This is where the story turns from bad to good — and why Matt is willing to tell it.
"I would hope that what happened to me would help serve as a warning and guide to others," he says.
