Avalanche Danger High Across Region

Tim Volking and his companions parked their snowmobiles on a ridge along the Montana-Idaho line and tried to decide if conditions were too risky to continue. Then they saw something that made the discussion moot.

Sticking up amidst the rubble of a fresh avalanche was a pair of legs, flailing wildly. The upside-down snowmobiler nearly suffocated by the time Volking and his friends could pull him out.

Volking, a member of the Coeur d’Alene Snowmobile Association, said the avalanche that trapped that unidentified man two weeks ago was the fourth or fifth he’s seen this year.

“I’ve ridden in there seven or eight years, and I’ve seen only one other avalanche,” Volking said.

From the Olympics to the Rockies, the Northwest is buried under the most snow in more than 10 years. And while lots of snow doesn’t always equate to high avalanche danger, a combination of other weather factors has made the mountains of the Inland Northwest ripe for slides.

“It’s particularly dangerous in that we’ve got several layers of snow that have not consolidated with the layers below them,” said Carl Gidlund, public affairs officer for the Idaho Panhandle National Forests.

Avalanches occur when one layer slides atop another. For anyone caught in the path, the result is often fatal.

Over the past decade or so, snowmobilers and snowboarders have replaced backcountry skiers and snowshoers as the people most likely to be caught in an avalanche, Northwest experts said.

Snowboarders are at risk because they often seek extreme slopes, said Mark Moore of the Northwest Avalanche Center in Seattle. They “tend to be independent. They don’t want to be told where to go,” he said.

A 22-year-old man died Sunday in the Cascade Mountains of southern British Columbia. He and two buddies snowshoed a half-mile from the road and were snowboarding in an avalanche chute, according to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

The noise and weight of a snowmobile on steep slopes are “ideal triggers” for avalanches, Moore said.

An Idaho snowmobiler was killed by an avalanche in steep terrain near Priest Lake on Saturday.

On Sunday, an avalanche crashed down around a group of snowmobilers using a popular trail near Wallace. They were not hurt.

Last month, footage of a North Idaho snowmobiler outrunning an avalanche made national news and sparked a Forest Service investigation into whether the men in the video intentionally started the slide.

The number of snowmobiles in Washington has grown from about 21,000 in 1990 to 31,000 in 1996, according to state statistics. Idaho statistics weren’t available Monday, but experts say the sport is booming across the region.

Until this year, many of the sport’s newcomers haven’t experienced ripe avalanche conditions.

“It seems snowmobilers aren’t as sensitive about the avalanche danger as backcountry skiers,” said Jeff Bloom, recreation manager for the Walla Walla ranger district of the Umatila National Forest.

Members of snowmobile clubs cringe at broad generalizations about the safety of their sport.

Al Beauchene, a board member for the Coeur d’Alene Snowmobile Association, said his club offers seminars on sizing up avalanche conditions. Volking attended one of the sessions and started carrying a beacon, a 15-foot probe and a shovel.

Beauchene compared snowmobilers who head into the backcountry during dangerous conditions to drivers who needlessly venture onto icy roads.

“A lot of us stayed home (last weekend),” or stuck to lowland trails, Beauchene said. “We’re not going into the mountains until it settles down.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Graphic: Formula for an avalanche

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: UPDATES Recorded avalanche updates for the Idaho Panhandle National Forests are available at (208) 765-7323 or on the Internet at www.fs.fed.us/outernet/ipnf/ forum.html For the Washington Cascades and Olympics, call the Northwest Avalanche and Snow Center recording at (206)526-6677. There is no recording for Eastern Washington. The Canadian Avalanche Association offers updates of snow conditions on the Internet at http:/ /www.avalanche.ca/snow