| John Stanley of Chicago, Illinois was caught in a snow slide on the south side of Snow King Mountain late Monday afternoon. The slide swept down the hill through Leek's canyon.
Rescue operations started almost immediately by local residents and continued late at night. Park Service and Forest personnel plus local volunteers worked from both directions, one crew starting at the top of the hill and working down and another crew starting from the bottom of Leek's canyon and working up. Dr. D. G. MacLeod assisted in the rescue operations, and Art Buckingham brought a weaser up the hill to help in the search.
Mr. Stanley was a very fine gentleman, well known among the local skiers. He had made the trip to Jackson to ski for the past several seasons.
The body of Mr. Stanley was found Wed. afternoon by rescue workers
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ACCIDENT SUMMARY
At the end of a day's skiing at a regular ski area, Mr. St. and Mr. And Mrs. S1 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 the 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. S1. stayed at the scene while Mrs. S1. 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 scintilator 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 and 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 than realized. The terminus of the debris from both slides One and Two were covered by Slide Three. Doctors at the scene estimated that the victim died with three minutes after being caught, due to the compactness of the snow in the canyon. Later examination showed no broken bones.
The local Ranger, who participated in the search, estimated that over 50 people worked on the rescue, spending an estimated 1,000 man-hours.
AVALANCHE DATA
Mr. St's ski released a small, 12-18 inch hard slab, which in turn triggered two more avalanches adjacent to the first. The slides occurred on a west exposure, on an estimated 45% slope. Deposition was in a narrow canyon bottom, and flowed down the creek farther than was evident by the debris. These slides would be coded HS-AS-2.
COMMENTS
The victim would have been found more quickly had probing started at the tow of all the debris. However, in this case, the eyewitness account and the debris were misleading. The rescuers were searching in what they believed to be the area of highest probability. This is one of several cases where avalanches have carried objects farther down a canyon than evidence indicates or common sense would believe. This rescue again confirms the uselessness of regular mine detectors or scintilators in searching for objects that are buried several feet under the snow.
The "guide cord," used to keep the probers aligned during this rescue, has now become part of standard rescue procedure.
This avalanche was a very small one, sliding down the hill less than 200 feet: yet it killed a man just as easily as could one that ran for several thousand feet.
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Monday September 06, 2010 
