A skier died in an avalanche Wednesday morning near Snowbird ski resort while making an amateur ski film.
Mark D. Marria, 21, an Alta resident originally from Boise, was pronounced dead at LDS Hospital at 11:38 a.m., one hour after friends and passers-by pulled him from under 7 1/2 feet of snow.Marria and several friends planned to make an amateur ski film in the backcountry near Snowbird; Marria was to star in the film. The group rode the tram to the top of Hidden Peak Wednesday morning, where they checked in with the Snowbird Ski Patrol and signed release forms required for skiing outside the resort's boundaries.
The group then skied into Mineral Basin, between Hidden Peak and Little Cloud run, said Rusty Martin, Snowbird spokesman.
Marria apparently triggered a slide on a 40-degree, northeast-facing slope at approximately 10:20 a.m. A wave of snow carried him down the hill and over a rock cliff, Martin said.
He was buried in 71/2 feet of snow at the base of the cliff. No one else was injured.
The route Marria had chosen would have required him to skirt some cliffs by skiing into a difficult, steep chute and is consider too dangerous to ski by anybody but the most experienced backcountry skiers who specialize in radically extreme skiing, said Dave Ream, a U.S. Forest Service ranger.
A member of the group captured the avalanche on film. The Utah County Sheriff's Department confiscated the 16mm film as part of its investigation of the accident.
The slide was 1,000 feet long and 100 to 200 feet wide, said Utah County Sheriff's Sgt. Jim Tracy. The fracture line measured 2 to 3 feet in height.
Ski Patrol members observed the fracture line moments after the slide occurred and called for a medical helicopter, Martin said. By the time the ski patrol arrived at the scene, members of Marria's group and other skiers in the area had dug him out of the snow.Marria, who was wearing a Pieps transceiver that helps rescuers locate avalanche victims, was buried for approximately 20 minutes.
"They were well-equipped to deal with the dangers they were undertaking," Martin said.
A helicopter transported Marria to LDS Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 11:31 a.m.
Marria's parents were killed in a commercial airline crash several years ago. He lived with an aunt in Boise until this winter, when he moved to Utah and bought a unit in the Hellgate Condominiums at Alta, said Rodney Lewis, a Snowbird real estage agent.