Don’t Let It Slide Winter Wonderland Can Turn To Icy Terror

A steep snow slope is an avalanche waiting to happen.

Problem is, no one knows when.

Backcountry skiers, snowboarders and snowmobilers have to take the responsibility to learn all they can about snow conditions, experts say.

“Even then, there will always be an element of chance,” said John Tweedy, senior avalanche technician for British Columbia Highways Department.

Although his job is to remove avalanche danger on the highway that goes over Kootenai Pass between Salmo and Creston, Tweedy had the unsavory duty to assess an avalanche that killed a 26-year-old snowboarder in early January.

“This was the first avalanche fatality near the pass in the 30 years since the highway was built,” Tweedy said. “But as recreation use up there increases, so does the chance of accidents. We look for lessons every time an avalanche tragedy happens.”

On Jan. 4, Geoffery Evans of Rossland was with a group of backcountry skiers that parked at Kootenai Pass and headed into the backcountry of Stagleap Provincial Park. Most of the party was on skis, but Evans was a snowboarder traveling by snowshoes.

“The day before the accident, one member of the group stopped by the Highway Department office because he’d locked his keys in the car,” Tweedy said. “When he said they planned to go skiing at the pass, I warned that we had been doing extensive avalanche control in the highway and that we found a lot of instabilities in midlevel slopes. He said they planned to ski in the trees.”

But the party didn’t.

“They skied on slopes north of the highway that had about three or four trees per acre,” Tweedy said. “That’s not enough trees to improve slope stability.”

Despite their indiscretion, none of the skiers was injured, although skiers were setting off small avalanches throughout the area.

“One party of skiers on the south side of the highway said they got out of there that day because they kept triggering bigger and bigger slides,” Tweedy said.

Evans, an accomplished snowboarder, was weak from hospitalization he’d endured a few months earlier. After one run, he realized his energy was waning and he told the group he’d better leave while he had enough strength, Tweedy said.

But the other skiers wanted to stay and frolic in the powdery snow, leaving Evans to hike out alone.

That apparently was a life and death decision.

Evans was making a steep traverse toward a ridge above a lake when he came to a small section of steeper slope.

“He should have gone much lower to be safe,” Tweedy said after studying the accident site. “But people are reluctant to lose elevation because it’s butt-busting work to regain it.

“Instead, he was climbing into a 37 degree slope, but his snowshoes couldn’t get across that sidehill. He altered his course, going across terrain that changed to 33 degrees.”

Evans triggered a small avalanche that knocked him downhill face-first with a snowboard strapped onto his back and snowshoes on his feet.

The slide was only 100 vertical feet and only 80 feet wide, Tweedy said, noting that Evans was wedged in under 3 feet of snow.

When another party member followed Evans’ tracks about 45 minutes later, he saw the victim’s arm above the snow at the bottom of the avalanche path.

“They were giving their report to the (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) when the body bag was coming out and I could see the realization come over their faces that they could have saved this guy,” Tweedy said.

“We learn from the earliest backcountry training that if you go in as a group, you should come out as a group. If somebody’s sick, it’s the group’s responsibility to get him back to the car.”

When traveling through avalanche terrain, travelers should spread out so the entire party isn’t wiped out in the event of an avalanche.

Backcountry users tend to be wary of bigger slopes, “but people are still pooh-poohing the little slopes,” Tweedy said.

Avalanche forecasting is much improved nowadays. Backcountry travelers can call for recorded messages that help predict avalanche potential based on field reports from avalanche experts, helicopter ski guides and alpine ski patrols.

More than 1,200 calls a week came in for the Canadian Avalanche Center forecast last winter, up from 250 a week in the winter of 1990-91.

“But you have to realize these forecasts cover an enormous area,” Tweedy said. “They’re general. Conditions at specific areas can vary widely, and quickly.”

Last weekend, for example, avalanche potential was low to moderate in North Idaho, said Bob Kasun, Panhandle National Forests hydrologist.

On Monday, forest officials were warning of increasing avalanche danger because of blowing powder snow loading the lee side of slopes.

“Until that stuff bonds, it can be very unstable,” Kasun said.

Tweedy continues to wrestle with the ironies of avalanche.

“Evans was only 150 meters from safety,” he said.

Last Thursday, Tweedy flew over Kootenai Pass area in an airplane and saw a trail where backcountry skiers had crossed right through the spot Evans had triggered his deadly avalanche.

From analyzing the snowpack, Tweedy knew that the slope was fairly stable that day.

“But did the skiers know that before they made the decision to push a route across that slope, or did these people have no idea what they were doing?” he wondered aloud.

Tweedy worries about the laid-back attitude people have with backcountry travel, especially now that snowboarders are venturing into the backcountry.

“We have parents dropping kids off at Kootenai Pass as they would a ski area,” he said. “These kids have little backcountry awareness, and there’s no ski patrol out there watching the situation.”

Canada officials recorded 73 avalanche incidents involving 137 people last winter in British Columbia and Alberta. The incidents included 60 backcountry skiers, 24 skiers inside alpine ski areas, 24 out-of-bounds skiers, 3 climbers, 14 snowmobilers and 11 others, said Torsten Geldsetzer, of the Canadian Avalanche Center.

But those figures probably represent only a fraction of the slides triggered by people, he said.

“If Evans would have struggled out of the slide we never would have heard about it,” Tweedy said. “Avalanche involvements usually aren’t reported unless they’re catastrophic.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo; Graphic: ‘White death’

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: AVALANCHE FORECASTS * Idaho Panhandle and Bitterroot Mountains: (208) 765-7323 Updated Fridays, with occasional midweek bulletins * Missoula region: (406) 549-4488. Updated Fridays, with occasional mid-week bulletins * Canada: (800) 667-1105 Updated weekdays * North Cascades: (206) 526-6677 Updated weekdays.