I was saying this since last summer: the convoluted nature of reservation systems and other COVID-related protocols would drive more people to seek the backcountry as their skiing fix. So there are a whole lot of inexperienced/less experienced skiers out there who don't practice full safety protocols (especially snowpack analysis) and look for the untracked lines.
The fact that this season's snowpack in the Rockies and Wasatch is so fragile adds to the danger. The Utah Avalanche Center issued its highest level warnings the morning of the Millcreek Canyon slide. And if you look at the area where it occurred it looked like a fairly innocuous slope to ski, but with the snowpack instability it was going to slide.
Many of my more experienced backcountry skier friends in Utah have been steering clear of things lately, a combination of knowledge of the snowpack and also wanting to stay away from the legions of newbies overwhelming the terrain. It's sad, but it's also where things are.
To loop in climate change, there is a likely correlation with the snowpack and how things have changed with the La Niña patterns. The extremes are more extreme: periods of almost zero snowfall (or a higher incidence of thaw cycles) followed by huge snowfall events. Climate change will bring more extremes, bigger variances in temperature, and this will make the snowpack harder to judge for the unseasoned backcountry skier.
I'm hoping that these tragedies will drive the "backcountry curious" to take snow analysis classes offered by avalanche centers. Knowing how to read snowpack is an essential backcountry skill. I'm sure that many of the newbies think "I have the probe, shovel, beacon, airbag, etc., so I'm good!" But not understanding the snowpack is a huge missing piece.