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This is the stuff that nightmares are made of, and reminds us of the supreme omnipotence of Mother Nature. On Saturday, Miles Penrose was snowmobiling with his two younger brothers and three friends in Utah’s Uinta Mountains. “I have been riding sleds in this particular area since I was eight years old,” Penrose said on Instagram, but none of that experience could have prepared him for what happened. As can be seen in the video, a massive slide was triggered in the steeps above them and came thundering down through the tree line and into the flats where the crew was riding. The avalanche caught Miles, one of his brothers and two of their friends. Miles, only buried chest deep was able to dig himself out and organize the rescue of his brother and friends. All uninjured, and all incredibly lucky.
This comes on the same day that eight skiers were caught in an avalanche near Millcreek, Utah. Four of them, all men and women in their 20s, died, capping off the deadliest week of avalanches in the U.S. since the 1910 Stevens Pass Avalanche that killed 96 train workers and passengers on the Great Northern Railroad. This past week – from January 30 up until February 6 – 15 fatalities across the U.S. due to avalanches were recorded, with many more caught and/or injured by slides. A painful reminder that when the snow is good – as it has been the past couple weeks – the danger of avalanches is as high as it gets.
