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Show carried the debris a considerable distance below this dropoff. At 1150 hours on Sunday, 10 March, ( 7 days after the accident) H.' s body was uncovered by a dozer. He was located 280 feet downstream from the last seen point, and 71 vertical feet below where his car had been parked. H. was buried under 8 feet of avalanche snow. ( Another 12- 15 feet of snow had been dozed on top of the natural debris, this snow coming from the search up- canyon.) On Saturday, 16 March, 13 days after the accident, the car was located. Under the right front wheel the body of A. was found. The car was under five feet of natural avalanche debris, and was 600 feet below the point where it had been swept from the road into the canyon. The top had been completely torn off, and all doors were either open or gone. Miraculously, a glass jar of cream was found unbroken on the front floor and only six of a dozen eggs had been broken. Searching continued intermittently, but was finally discontinued when the snow became too soft to support equipment. Relatives walked the slide debris as the snow melted, and finally on 30 May, P. was found -- 88 days after the accident. Her body was 20 feet downstream from where the car had been found, and probably had been buried under about 15 feet of natural sliding snow. Autopsies indicated that all three victims had probably died instantly due to the severe battering sustained in the avalanche. AVALANCHE DATA This avalanche had been shot by the control crew on Monday, six days before the accident occurred, with negative results. Stormy weather had prevented further control work, but winds and storms continued to deposit snow in the catchment basin. A portion of the catchment basin apparently released at 0400 hours on 3 March, with the remainder releasing about 0930. It was evident the slide was a climax and a hard slab. The volume of snow was considerable. About one- half way up the path, the snow had ricocheted off one wall of the gulch, changed directions by 60 degrees, swept far out onto the opposite wall breaking off 20- 30 year old aspen, then plummeted down the side slope as well as down the main avalanche gully. Fracture lines were evident on all three aspects of the catchment basin. After the snow crossed the highway, it dropped into the canyon and climbed the opposite wall which was nearly vertical. This cliff turned the avalanche downstream, but the velocity was so great the snow ran along the face horizontally for about 75 feet, before it gradually fell downwards and again into the gorge of the creek. The creek was filled with snow from 30 to 60 feet deep, and was deposited downstream from the main avalanche track for some 650 feet. The slide is classified as HS- N- 5 ( Climax). 90 |