Utah brothers survive avalanche after one pulls other out of snow burial

Two brothers are lucky to be alive this holiday season after being caught up in an avalanche that buried one brother under snow. 

The avalanche happened on Christmas Eve in the Steep Hollow area of Franklin Basin in Cache County, FOX 13 News Utah reported. 

The local TV station said the men were riding snowmobiles when one of them triggered the avalanche.

One of the brothers was carried for about 150 yards prior to being fully buried, according to an incident report from the Utah Avalanche Center.

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“He was recovered by his brother, who used a transceiver to get close enough to see a couple of fingers of a gloved hand sticking out of the snow,” the report said.  

The elevation of the avalanche was about 9,000 feet. The area where it happened had a “persistent weak layer,” the incident report said. 

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The avalanche occurred at an elevation of 9,000 feet, according to a notice from the Utah Avalanche Center.  (Utah Avalanche Center)

“I could see his hand, his gloves, kind of poking out, waving,” Braeden Hansen told NBC News about his brother Hunter. “But, by the time I got to him, he was about 2 feet, his head was about 2 feet under the snow.”

“I just cleared the snow away from his head and got his helmet off so that he could start breathing again and then just started digging his body out from there,” he said.

After one man pulled his brother from the snow, the two men doubled up on a snowmobile and headed out of the backcountry.  (Utah Avalanche Center)

The two then doubled up and rode out of the backcountry, the avalanche center said.

The brother who was buried sustained minor injuries, according to FOX 13.

“Those guys had a very, very lucky Christmas Eve,” Utah Avalanche Center forecaster Toby Weed told the local station. “No. 1, always access and read the forecast. The forecast that day, it was considerable avalanche as it is the avalanche danger, and that’s actually the same danger that it is here in Logan today.”

Avalanche dangers in the mountains of northern Utah and southeast Idaho are “widespread” heading into the weekend, according to the avalanche center.