[MCR] Banff, Yoho, Kootenay Avalanche Conditions, March 10, 2014

Just a heads up for anyone considering climbing or skiing in avalanche terrain in Banff, Yoho and Kootenay Parks during the next several days...

We just finished several rounds of explosive control on the highway avalanche paths in Banff, Yoho and Kootenay National Parks and had a good chance to look around much of the back-country terrain.  There has been a very wide spread natural avalanche cycle up to size 3 over the last 48 hours on all aspects and elevations with many avalanches reaching the bottom of their historical run outs.  This natural avalanche cycle slowed slightly today but continued again this afternoon with the daytime warming. Failure surfaces include the recent storm snow, the Feb 10th interface and the basal facets. 

In addition to two avalanche fatalities on Lake Agnes on March 8th, we also responded to a couple of skier remote avalanches triggered today. West Bowl in Lake Louise had a remotely triggered size 3 from 20m away, and Mt Fairview had three remotely triggered size 2's and a size 2.5 from 80-200m away.  We also received a report from two parties in the Bow Canyon area that had remotely triggered two size 2's from up to 100m away and another party in the Bow Canyon area yesterday reported similar results. 

Our explosive control was also very successful with approximately 80-90% of the shots over the past three days causing size 2 or larger avalanches and covering the highway on the 93S.

We expect this pattern to continue for the next couple of days and at this point we are recommending avoiding all avalanche terrain until things improve.

 

Conrad Janzen
ACMG Mountain Guide
 Visitor Safety - Banff, Yoho and Kootenay National Parks

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