PARK CITY -- The fate of two Park City skiers was pretty clear as soon as the aerial photographs of Tuesday's avalanche were developed.
"We see a pair of ski tracks hiking up to Square Top. And then I see one going to the right and starting to make a turn and then one going straight and starting to turn . . . and then they disappear at the fracture line," their friend John Benson said. "They had to know right away they were in trouble. I can only imagine what they must have been thinking."Looking at the photo, Benson broke down. It was then that his hope ran out for his neighbors Greg and Loren Mackay.
The Mackays' bodies were found about 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, buried beneath the debris-filled snow of a slide that officials from the U.S. Forest Service and the Summit County Sheriff's Office are calling massive. The slide is estimated to be about 600 feet wide, 5 feet deep, with a vertical drop of about 1,000 feet, Forest Service avalanche forecaster Tom Kimbrough said. This is the third year in a row that backcountry enthusiasts have died in snow slides along the Wasatch Front on Jan. 11, he said.
Tuesday's slide was likely triggered by the Mackays, Summit County Sheriff's Lt. Joe Offret said. The couple, who were skiing at the Canyons resort, apparently used a backcountry access gate near the top the Ninety Nine 90 chair lift, and hiked about a mile behind that peak and across a saddle to Square Top, a peak at about the 9,700 foot elevation. The couple was skiing outside the Canyons resort boundaries at the time of the slide, Offret said.
Square Top peak is on Forest Service land in the Wasatch-Cache National Forest. Avalanche control work is not done in that area by either the forest service or the Canyons resort. Still, it is a popular backcountry location for skiers and other outdoor enthusiasts, Kimbrough said.
"That ridge line gets a fair bit of traffic, but it's steep, maybe 37, 38 even 40 degrees," he said. "It wasn't a good idea to be there. It's right on the Wasatch Crest, it was very heavily drifted and it was starting to warm up."
Those factors have prompted many to say that the Mackays should never have been skiing in the area. A canyon ski patroller told the sheriff's office he encountered the couple near the backcountry access point about noon Tuesday and "strongly discouraged" them from skiing there, Offret said.
But Greg Mackay, 47, and his wife, Loren, 41 -- who run a Florida-based scuba diving company from their Park City home -- would not have taken a chance with their lives, Benson said. They were active, athletic and lovers of adventure, but recklessness would be uncharacteristic of the pair, he said.
"They were major powder-hounds, expert skiers," he said. "I don't want a picture painted that these are reckless people, because they are not. There were very conscientious people who were devoted to (their son). I'm convinced they felt they were going to be safe."
It was uncharacteristic of the Mackays to not pick up their son, Connor, 3, from day care Tuesday afternoon. Their failure to do so was what first alerted authorities to a possible problem. Deputies came knocking on the door of the Bensons' home, about 6 p.m., asking if John and his wife knew the whereabouts of their neighbors.
The Bensons thought Greg Mackay had left on a business trip to Las Vegas. But snooping around the Mackays' home that night, Benson found the plane tickets. About 10:30 p.m. he started calling Greg Mackay's friends and ski buddies. Steve Graybill told him the Mackays had gone to spend the day at Snowbird, Benson said. But while sheriff's deputies mobilized officials at Snowbird, Benson and friends started looking for the couple on their own.
Benson discovered one of the Mackays cars was at a local dealership for repairs. Graybill and another friend, Clay Oakley, cruised the parking lots at Park City Mountain Resort looking for the other. They found it at the Canyons and alerted the sheriff.
A search at the Canyons went on through the night without luck. A helicopter was hampered by bad weather, and about 5 a.m. the search was called off temporarily. A few hours later, when the skies clear, the bird was back in the air taking pictures.
From the pictures, officials were able to pinpoint a possible location and concentrated the search, which included about 45 search and rescue volunteers and ski patrollers from the Canyons.
First a ski was found. Then a body and then about 20 minutes later, the second body, about 20 yards away, Offret said. The medical examiner has not yet determined a cause of death, but most avalanche victims die from suffocation, Offret said. Neither of the bodies appears to have suffered much physical trauma, he said.
The deaths, however, have traumatized the Mackays' neighborhood, where the families have become close because their children play so often together. Connor Mackay, and the Bensons' own 5-year-old son, also named Connor, play like brothers, Benson said.
"I feel like I've lost a brother," Benson said.
The tragedy will also make Benson, a self-described powder-hound himself, rethink his choices the next time he straps on a pair of skis.
"It's now for the first time I can say with a surety that the risks I've taken in the past will never be taken again," he said. "I've had some close calls and reflecting back on it . . . my gosh . . . I could have died."