The state medical examiner's office has ruled that a 24-year-old man whose body was found last week near Tony Grove Lake in Logan Canyon died from asphyxiation caused by an avalanche last fall.
Cache County Sheriff's Lt. George Becker said Saturday that the medical examiner's report supports the conclusion of local authorities that Mark Miller was caught in an avalanche and died from suffocation in late November.Becker also said Dr. Carol Snedaker of the state medical examiner's office has found no signs of trauma on the skier's body, which was found Wednesday.
Miller, who had gone into the area for back-country skiing on Nov. 25 and failed to return that evening, was the object of an intensive search over rugged terrain for about three weeks.
"The report showed there were no broken bones, no signs of contusions or abrasions and no signs of hitting any hard objects," he said.
However, Bruce Tremper, director of the Utah Avalanche Forecast Center, said that although there is no way to prove his point, he believes that Miller was injured. He said evidence at the scene does not add up to an avalanche.
Tremper said avalanches are "very violent, and if an avalanche had hit Miller, the area around his body would have looked like a yard sale with things scattered everywhere."