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Show No. 56- 4 LEEKS CANYON. WYOMING 5 March 1956 ACCIDENT SUMMARY At the end of a day's skiing at a regular ski area, Mr. St. and Mr. and Mrs. SI. decided to finish the ' day by skiing down a drainage away from the developed area. They made arrangements for a man to meet them with a car at the mouth of the canyon. At approximately 1705 hours, 5 March, the party skied onto a steep side hill, where they stopped for a moment. They were about 150 feet above the creek bed. Mr. St. then skied onto the slope ahead of them. A slab cut loose, carrying St. into the creek bottom. Almost at the same time, a second slide released adjacent to t\ ye first one. This, in turn, triggered a third slide adjacent to number two. These slides ran less than 200 feet down the slope, with a combined width of all three of less than 300 feet. However, the avalanche snow was 30 feet deep in some places in the creek bottom. RESCUE St. was last seen waist deep in the snow, in the bottom of the canyon, directly below where he had released the slide. He disappeared when the debris from the second slide hit the creek. Mr. SI. stayed at the scene while Mrs. SI. skied onto the road, and went by car to report the accident. The report was received at 1730 hours, and the rescue cache and some men were sent to the top of the ski area where they could ski to the scene. The hasty party arrived at 1755, and the search began. By 1830 enough men had arrived to set up a 10- man probing crew. More people arrived, and probing continued with 10- foot probes until 0115 hours, 6 March, when the entire area of highest probability of Slides One and Two had been covered. It was obvious the probes were not long enough, and since the temperatures were below zero, the search was called off for the night. A scinti-lator and a mine detector were both tried at the scene to no avail. An oxygen resuscitator was brought to the area during the first night's operation. Probing began again at 0900 on 6 March, with some longer probes added to the operation. In places it was necessary to dig down 5- 10 feet, then probe the remaining 20 feet of snow. The alignment of the probing crew was maintained by a string stretched in front of the probers. Probing in 15- 25 foot deep snow was found to be a slow process. Often the longer probes would deflect and not follow a " plumb" line course. All unidentified objects were dug out, even though some of these logs or pieces of debris were buried quite deeply. In the afternoon of 6 March, one of the victims ski poles was located under six feet of snow below where slide Number Two had released. On 7 March the rescuers attempted to move in two bulldozers, but the steepness of the canyon and the snow depth prevented them from reaching the scene. At 1500 hours on* 7 March, Mr. St's body was located under eight feet of snow in the lower part of the debris from the Number Three avalanche. Mr. St. had apparently been carried further down the creek by avalanches One and Two 25 |
