Skier who died in avalanche traveled the world's backcountry

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As an exploration geologist, Ricardo Presnell spent nearly three-quarters of his time traveling through the backcountry of Alaska, China, the Congo and all over the world.

But wherever he was, he stopped to call his wife, Caroline Kroko, sometimes four or five times a day.

"He just was not a person who would enjoy a sort of quiet, comfortable life," she said. When he was home, he didn't sit still. He rode his mountain bike, went hiking, started dance parties to jazz and funk music or played with their three dogs.

And anytime he would leave for a dangerous place or try out a new sport, his wife would say: "Don't forget to come back."

She said the same thing Thursday morning as the 51-year-old left to go skiing in Big Cottonwood Canyon, wearing the new gear he'd gotten for Christmas. Just as he always did, he told her where he was going, and she wrote it down as she started work for the day.

He and two friends, Sarah Bennett and her boyfriend, Joey Klein, did two long runs on the upper half of the slope. The day was overcast and beautiful, and it was just starting to snow when they decided to take their last run down the lower half of the slope to get to the valley floor before 2 p.m. Presnell took off first, disappearing over the edge of the ridge making turns in his signature wide stance.

"He skied away and seconds later, we heard the whoompf," Bennett said. "Then we saw a big dust cloud and we saw debris running up the far side of the valley."

The 1,300-foot-long avalanche caught and enveloped him. Klein and Bennett skied down the ridge and saw an approximately 300-foot-wide swath of destruction, with trees up to 6 inches around snapped by the force of the snow. Bennett called 911 while Klein located Presnell's beacon and started to dig him out. When rescuers arrived, they continued to dig and performed CPR, but never found a pulse.

"If we had made it out all of us in one piece, we would have walked out to the car and on to the rest of our lives," Bennett said.

Presnell was one of the most passionate, confident skiers she knew and had extensive backcountry experience and always wore safety gear, Bennett said. When they met 28 years ago, he was working the tram at Snowbird resort. "He did skiing like he did everything else -- to the fullest."

Friend Chris Bedford remembered a night he and another friend spent enthralled by Presnell's stories, like jumping from a helicopter as it landed on one skid, searching for gold in Alaska and encountering grizzly bears.

"Later, we had a conversation about perhaps we missed out on a lot in life, comparatively speaking," Bedford said with a smile.

Though Presnell edited those stories for his wife, who worried, she knew it was part of who he was.

"That's what he did, and that's what he loved to do and he was good at it and the same with sports. You can't live worrying about it, and you have to respect what's important with people's lives," Kroko said.

A native of Massachusetts, Presnell went to Middlebury College, earned a master's degree at the University of Michigan and went to the University of Utah for a Ph.D. That's where he met Kroko, another geology graduate student. She remembered attending a party that was "really, really boring" -- until he showed up.

"I heard this noise and activity behind me ... and suddenly the whole party became a great party," she said. "We were the best friends and soulmates, and we both knew we were meant to be together."

Presnell also leaves behind a twin brother.