The Utah Avalanche Center had issued a warning Jan. 29 — which Damschroder and his partner had read — that with close to a foot of new snowfall atop an unstable base, the avalanche danger was "considerable" to "high." It recommended skiers and snowboarders avoid the backcountry or stick to slopes with a steepness of less than 30 degrees. The apron of the slope on which Damschroder was killed sits at a 37-degree angle.

His partner was able to locate him and perform CPR for about 40 minutes before becoming exhausted. He was asked to leave the area by PCMR Ski Patrol and the Summit County Sheriff's Office so they could begin rescue efforts. But with darkness encroaching and the area threatening to release more avalanches — they later triggered three larger slides in the area using explosives dropped by helicopter — they postponed recovery until the following day.

Damschroder had been skiing the backcountry in and around Park City since moving to the area in 1987 from the ski town of Petoskey, Mich., where he had been on his high school's ski racing team. In fact, he moved to Utah explicitly for the skiing after graduating with a degree in industrial design from the University of Michigan.
At 6-foot-4, he was an imposing figure, but that
was offset by his mischievous sense of humor. Combined with his eagerness for adventure, it made him something of "an icon" in the local backcountry ski community, his family said.