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MOAB — The body of an 18-year-old Colorado man buried in a Saturday avalanche in Grand County was recovered by searchers Sunday afternoon around 2 p.m.
A group of four snowmobilers from Colorado were riding in the Beaver Basin area of the LaSal Mountains when the Saturday avalanche was triggered about 10:30 a.m. "They said they kind of saw a white mist and all of a sudden, here it came," said Grand County Sheriff Steven White.
The name of the man killed has not yet been released. White said about 40 searchers and another 20 support personnel worked through the day Sunday to find the man buried in about 12 feet of snow. His body was located about 2 p.m. Sunday, about five feet from where the snowmobile was found at a depth of about 10 feet.
"It took a lot of digging," the sheriff said, adding that the slide area of about an acre was in a very steep ravine where snow depths are about 30 feet. No official determination had been made as of about 4:30 p.m. Sunday what triggered the avalanche that killed the man, though there was no obvious cause other than the snowmobiles, the sheriff said.
