Avalanche: Mathews Hollow

The incident began when an 18-year-old rider triggered a small avalanche (most likely a wet sluff) as he descended a steep slope and was taken for a ride. He lost control of his sled as it flipped over a few times and ended up buried to the handlebars in a gully. The rider was partially buried nearby and was able to self extricate. A second rider rode his sled down the slope and assisted the first. According to information gathered from the father of the second rider, the avalanche was only a small part of the ordeal. It turns out the pair had descended into a steep ravine that bottomed out in cliffs above the rock quarry at the head of the canyon. They could not get down due to the cliffs below and they couldn't get back up the steep gully they had descended. Trapped by the terrain, the pair became exhausted recovering the sled and trying to get back up and out of the bottomless ravine. They called friends for help in the evening and eventually made it out of the canyon after a long night on the mountain...