SALT LAKE CITY — A 49-year-old woman fell about 1,000 feet to her death down a snow-filled ravine on a mountain that rises steeply on the east side of Salt Lake City.
The body of Karin Vandenberg was recovered Saturday from Mount Olympus, Salt Lake County sheriff’s Lt. Don Hutson said.
The woman’s son and another 14-year-old boy also slipped in the same ravine and suffered head trauma and possible broken bones.
Both teenagers were at Primary Children’s Medical Center in stable condition, Hutson said.
Other members of the hiking party were a son and daughter-in-law of billionaire Earl Holding, the owner of Sinclair Oil Corp., the Little and Grand America hotels, Sun Valley ski resort in Idaho and Utah’s Snowbasin resort.
Steve Holding and his wife, Christine, avoided falling and were safely evacuated, but their 14-year-old son, Clayton, was one of the injured teenagers at the hospital.
Christine Holding was the last hiker airlifted from the mountain. Authorities insisted on hoisting all of the hikers onto a helicopter, one by one, because of the threat of avalanches in warming temperatures, Hutson said.
