Utah Avalanche Center launches new mobile app focused on backcountry safety same month as deadly avalanche

Salt Lake City — The Utah Department of Public Safety released a video from its Aero Bureau Tuesday, showing the rescue of an injured skier involved in the deadly avalanche in Big Cottonwood Canyon on Feb. 8, 2025.

This rescue took place in the East Bowl of Silver Fork of Big Cottonwood Canyon. According to the final Utah Avalanche Center Accident Report, the two skiers had just begun their descent when the slope shattered, triggering an avalanche that was about 125 feet wide and about 2 feet deep.

According to the report, the client skier swam in the chaos, lost his skis, slammed into a tree and was partially buried with a fractured tibia and fibula.

“I’m trying to keep his right leg out, I’m bringing him up to me,” said the rescuer on the DPS helicopter controlling the hoist.

Local ski guide Higinio “Quino” Gonzalez was also carried by the avalanche into a tree and suffered traumatic injuries. Several bystanders, including an ER physician, happened to be back-country skiing in the area at the time and carefully descended into the bowl and tried to help.

According to the report, those bystanders attempted CPR for 30 minutes before it was determined that Gonzales did not survive the injuries sustained in the slide.

“Members of Salt Lake County Search and Rescue packaged Quino to be transported to the ICP; however, deteriorating weather conditions ceased the air operations and Quino was recovered the following day,” stated the report.

Already this season, which began October 2024, Utah has had 553 avalanches and four of them have been deadly. Since Jan. 1, 2025, there have been 345.

“We have a strange snowpack this year,” said Chad Brackelsberg, Executive Director Emeritus and Special Projects Lead with the Utah Avalanche Center. “We went long periods in both December and January without snow and so now we just have multiple weak layers in the snowpack.”

New app to track avalanche conditions

On Tuesday, the Utah Avalanche Center launched a new, more comprehensive app thanks to funding from KÜHL and the Division of Outdoor Recreation, that focuses on being a powerful source of information on Utah’s backcountry.

“Our goal is to make sure that everybody who travels in the backcountry has the information they need to make good decisions and come home safely at the end of every day,” Brackelsberg said.

The new app is available for both Android and IOS users and provides daily avalanche forecasts and observation reports for all Utah regions. With a more modern look, it integrates live regional weather station data, cameras and weather radar. It also has emergency contact information for reporting accidents and avalanches.

“When you open it up, you immediately see the familiar map with the UAC forecast regions on it with the color-coded danger rating,” Brackelsberg said. “Once you click into your region, you can get all the information for that region — from the full forecast, links to weather stations, the radar, road conditions, cameras (and) weather cameras.”

Brackelsberg said the new app also allows users to submit real time observations, so if a spot in the backcountry has cellular service, a user can upload observation information immediately. He said having that real time data at your fingertips will hopefully help people know the terrain they should avoid and plan a safer route for the day.

“It’s one more way that people can access this information to make sure that they’re seeing what’s happening,” Brackelsberg said.