The four skiers killed in Saturday’s Mill Creek avalanche were young Utahns who reveled in the state’s beauty, pursuing adventures from its ski slopes to its redrock country.
Stephanie Hopkins, known as “Steph” to her friends, was a nurse at University of Utah Health who “could often be found climbing in the desert or skiing the tallest mountains,” said her friend, Lismore Nebeker. “She became best friends with strangers and found beauty in everything.”
Hopkins was skiing with two friends Saturday, and was hiking up in Mill Creek Canyon when the avalanche broke loose, her family said. A separate group of five skiers had come over from Big Cottonwood Canyon and were coming down the north-facing ridgeline separating the two canyons, below Wilson Peak.
All eight skiers were caught in the slide, which was 2 1/2 feet deep and 250 feet wide, officials said. While four were able to dig themselves and their companions out, two people from each group died.
Here is what we know about them:
Sarah Moughamian, 29, of Sandy
Sarah Moughamian lived life big, her brother, Paul Moughamian, posted on Facebook, as others responded with memories of her intrepid spirit.
“Sarah, I love you my little sister and now I’ll miss you forever,” Paul Moughamian wrote, adding, “hopefully we can live life as big as you lived yours.”
Moughamian, who was from Idaho, graduated from Washington and Lee University in Virginia, and had been working at a market research firm in Utah for the past seven years.
Her mother, Jill Moughamian, told KSL-Ch. 5 that Moughamian had been skiing Saturday with her soulmate, who dug her out of the snow but could not resuscitate her.
“She has spent all of her available free time in these last months climbing, skiing and mountaineering,” Jill Moughamian told KSL. “She’s really lived her life to the fullest and was doing what she loved to do.”
Responding to Paul Moughamian’s tribute to his sister, one friend wrote: “She was a wonderful, adventurous person who filled many lives with love and action-packed trips.” Another said, “Sarah was a truly wonderful and inspirational woman and she will be missed.”
Louis Holian, 26, of Salt Lake City
Louis Holian rarely used Facebook or Instagram, but when he did, he posted about the joy he found outdoors — trail running, backcountry skiing, hiking, mountain biking and climbing.
Once, he posted about a run up to Zion National Park’s iconic Angels Landing and “getting naked at the top.”
When a Facebook friend responded, “naked pictures or it didn’t naked happen,” Holian posted a photo taken from behind him — as he admired the sweeping view in nothing but his baseball cap and running shoes.
Originally from Richmond, Ill., he was friends on Facebook with Thomas Louis Steinbrecher, another of the skiers who died.
Thomas Louis Steinbrecher, 23, of Salt Lake City
A University of California, Los Angeles graduate, Tom Steinbrecher’s social media posts also show he was an avid recreationist, with an affinity for the extreme.
“I like silly missions like taking my race skis down wolverine cirque” — a steep bit of terrain between Brighton and Alta ski resorts at the top of Big Cottonwood Canyon — “or doing time trials up to the summit of Superior,” a 11,045-feet peak overlooking Alta and Snowbird ski resorts.
In December, he posted saying he was ready for the ski season. He was available early mornings and evenings on week days and all day on the weekends, he wrote. “Hope to get out with some of ya’ll soon!”
Stephanie Hopkins, 26, of Salt Lake City
Stephanie Hopkins was a gifted student at the University of Utah. She graduated from its prestigious critical care internship program and worked as a nurse in the neuro critical care unit, where she was “loved and respected by her colleagues,” the university said in a statement.
Her friends say she loved the outdoors — one of her favorite places was Lake Powell — and also had a knack for making those around her feel loved.
“I don’t even know if I have words that will do her justice,” said friend Karsen Barbieri, “but she always lived life [to] the fullest and will be remembered and missed every time we see a sunset, have a great snow day, see blue butterflies, and enjoy the beauty of the world. She was the light of our life.”
(Photo courtesy of Nick Liddell) Stephanie Hopkins in an Oct. 2020 photograph at Zion National Park. Hopkins was one of four people who died in an avalanche in Mill Creek Canyon, Saturday, Feb. 6, 2021.
Hopkins grew up in Salt Lake City, the daughter of a physician and the oldest of five siblings, said her aunt, DeeAnn Cervantez. ”She was an incredible person who will be greatly missed,” Cervantez said Sunday.
Her aunt described the Olympus High School graduate as gregarious, accomplished and smart, “really a caregiver, even to her family.”
Hopkins’ younger sister, Addi, 20, was diagnosed with a brain tumor in December, the aunt said, and underwent surgery at University Hospital Jan. 28, followed by another operation last Thursday.
Though Stephanie had taken the time off from her ICU duties at the same hospital to support Addi and the family, “she made sure Addi had the best nurses and kept tabs on everything,” Cervantez said. “If anyone was in need, she was the first to step up.”
On Saturday, everyone in Hopkins’ group was initially buried, though some dug out, Cervantez said. Authorities told family members that crews reached and retrieved her body on Sunday, and the family was awaiting word on an exact cause of death, she said.
A memorial Facebook page, Remembering Stephanie Ann, was created Sunday. “Her love of life was contagious,” one friend wrote. “She was the perfect example on how to live, to be present in the moment and to cherish the beauty of life.”
Hopkins’ “light and love was palpable to everyone who was lucky enough to cross her path,” friend Lismore Nebeker said. " ... She was truly one of a kind, her energy was contagious and this world was a better place for having her in it.”
— This story is developing and will be updated. Tribune reporters Chris Samuels and Paighten Harkins contributed to this report.
