Winter Toll: 4 Died in Utah Avalanches

The ski season is closing with four avalanche fatalities in Utah, including the death of a safety professional.

The Salt Lake Tribune reports that the number is average for a Utah winter.

The first death of a Utah avalanche forecaster on the job claimed 34-year-old Craig Patterson of the Utah Department of Transportation.

Patterson was scouting terrain on backcountry skis when an avalanche swept him off Kessler Peak April 11 in Big Cottonwood Canyon.

Another slide Jan. 18 killed Coleman and Traven Sweat, young brothers on a family snowmobile trip in the Uinta mountains. They stepped onto a hidden cornice, triggering a slide that buried them.

Another avalanche claimed James Child, a 32-year-old father of four. The Pleasant Grove man was snowmobiling on the Manti-Skyline Plateau of central Utah.