The temperature rests at a brisk 6 degrees with a light down-slope breeze as Mick makes his way uphill on a steep black diamond slope at the Sundance Ski Resort. About a third of the way up the slope there is a man trapped 3 feet below the snow. It is Mick's job to locate him in the vast featureless snowy slope and dig him out. Fortunately for Mick and the man buried below the surface, Mick is a dog with a highly trained sense of smell and this is only a test.

Sundance employs three such avalanche rescue dogs, two of which are certified as "level A" for rescues.

"What a level A dog can do is if you take a 100-by-100 yard square area, within 20 minutes a level A dog would be able to locate two live victims buried below the snow and two distraction items, like a backpack or a pair of skis that may have been ripped off the victims," said Tracy Christensen, Mick's handler.

"It is like trying to find two pieces of rice in a dump truck full of sand. That is how receptive their noses are. Out of all the smells that are out there -- the trees, the squirrels, the skiers, the trash and the other rescue workers walking around the snow -- these dogs are looking for those two grains of rice buried in the snow," Christensen said.

At 5 years old, Mick is currently at the peak of his career. Typically, a rescue dog spends its first two years working its way from a level C puppy to a level B dog. Sometime during its second year it is tested to be certified as a level A rescue dog. All of the Wasatch ski resorts employ rescue dogs. Most of the resorts have three to five dogs at various levels of training and experience, with at least one certified for rescue. The dogs from all of the resorts are a part of Wasatch Backcountry Rescue, which means any emergency can be handled by any of the resorts using the same set of protocols and expectations.

The handlers of the dogs are trained with an equally strict set of expectations, in their ability to both control the dog and to assess the potential hazards of the rescue zone. Christensen is required to determine the safest route to the rescue zone and the possibility of a second avalanche that could endanger the rescue crews.

"Not only is he my partner when we come to work, but he is also my best friend, too," Christensen said. "When I take him home at night and we take off his vest he is my dog. I feed him and pet him and we play games. There are times when you need to just let your dog be a dog."

Sundance Ski Patrol members stress the importance of every skier carrying and knowing how to use an avalanche beacon, a shovel and probes. In an emergency situation, the first line of rescue is the victim's ski partner because within three to five minutes of being buried without oxygen, brain injury and subsequent death occurs. The fastest means of rescue is with a partner and a beacon.

"Oftentimes people think that the dog is going to save them," Christensen said. "The problem with the dog is if you are in the backcountry, by the time we get there it could be 45 minutes to get to the scene and even begin our search, and that is a long time for the possibility of a live recovery."

Fortunately, Mick has never been involved in a real live rescue or recovery mission. He just spends his days hanging out with the Sundance Ski Patrol going through rescue drills and assorted training exercises, which Mick can't seem to get enough of. As soon as Mick dug up his test victim buried on the slope, he shook the snow off his snout and started up the hill with his nose to the snow, in the hopes of another find.