[MCR] Avalanche close calls in the Rockies

Over the past 10 days, Parks Canada in Banff, Yoho and Kootenay National Parks, along with avalanche professionals from the local ski areas have been called to 7 near-miss avalanche involvements.  In the interests of helping further cement people's understanding of the current snowpack conditions in the Rockies, we thought we would share some stories.

 

January 4 - One lone person entered West Bowl, just outside the Skiing Louise area boundary. They triggered a size 2 which they rode out of and skied away. At the same time, they remotely triggered a large size 2.5 which they were close to but not involved in. We responded with Lake Louise ski patrol and determined there were exit tracks and nobody buried.

 

January 5 - One lone person dove into Corral Creek 1 from the very top, just outside the Skiing Louise boundary (towards Skoki). He then triggered a nasty size 3 which he luckily managed to ski off, narrowly escaping a terrible ride through the rocks. On his nervous trip back down his up track, he remotely triggered another size 2 into a deep gully terrain trap.

 

January 5 - Three skiers skinned directly up an avalanche path to the north of the Emerald Lake Slide Path. After ascending the track of the avalanche path for 600 meters, the party stepped to the side in order to avoid the convex roll above them in the starting zone.  When they skied onto the flat terrain above this roll, they heard a large settlement and the whole path avalanched, burying most of their up track where they had spent the previous 1.5 hrs.

 

January 12 - While preparing to do avalanche control at Sunshine Village, we were notified of a large avalanche down on the Field Back Road (access to ice climbs). This occurred one gully to the west of the ice climb "Labatt's Lane", and put 2 meters of debris x 50 meters wide on the road, this on a path that has not ever reached the road in recent memory. Ice climbers take note!

 

January 12 - While we were doing avalanche control on the access road to Sunshine Village, we were called to WaWa ridge, just outside the Sunshine area boundary. Two skiers had centre punched the convex roll, which triggered an ugly size 2 on the ground.  One person (?) rode this to the very bottom of the debris and was buried to their waist. We landed on the debris, checked that they were ok and then resumed our control work.

 

January 12 - One lone snowboarder missed their line and got hung up in the cliffs of Maintenance Bowl, just outside the Skiing Louise boundary.  After trying for self-rescue for over 3 hours, and triggering 2 avalanches, this person smartly called for help. They were rescued using a helicopter long-line after we finished avalanche control work at Sunshine.

 

January 14 - A group of 3 skiers were caught in a size 2 avalanche in Maintenance Bowl (again), one person of the group was critically buried but could uncover their mouth and breath. The party called for help, then managed to locate their friend by calling his cell phone and digging with skis. They party was evacuated, uninjured.

By now it should be totally obvious how unstable the snowpack is. While the peak of this avalanche cycle will likely soon be over, these dangerous conditions will persist for a long time. Weak snowpacks like this take months to heal. This is a winter to put your big plans aside; maybe things will improve for the spring.

 

What is perhaps most amazing about these close calls, is how many of these people told us they had read the avalanche forecast, seen the photos our Facebook page and were aware of the conditions.  It seems that some people have difficulty connecting the clear warnings with their terrain they choose to ski. Moderate terrain means slopes of 30 degrees or less with no overhead hazard.

 

Today we are doing more avalanche control work and hoping these close calls will end.

 

Visitor Safety Team
Banff, Yoho and Kootenay National Parks
www.parksmountainsafety.ca

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