After a skier had a close call in the backcountry near Lake Louise, Parks Canada safety specialists are warning of ongoing dangerous avalanche conditions.
On Monday (Jan. 18) at about 4:30 p.m., said Brian Webster, visitor safety specialist for Banff National Park, a call came in that a party of four who left the Lake Louise ski area to head into the National Geographics backcountry area had been caught in an avalanche.
Of the four local skiers, a 22-year-old female had been swept down the mountain, losing her skis in the process and suffering minor bumps and bruises. A skier with a cellphone put in a call for assistance.
With darkness falling, safety specialists couldn’t get to the site via helicopter, so a rescue team skied in with a spare set of skis for the woman. As a group, they then skied uphill to make their way out of the area.
Without a helicopter, said Webster, “what would have been a 30 or 40 minute rescue turned into a seven or eight hour round trip rescue.
“But she was effectively stranded and had to go uphill and there was no way to do that without skis. She was not buried or hurt and one of the party with a cellphone managed to climb higher to get a signal.”
The avalanche rating (www.avalanchecanada.ca) at the time was moderate and remained so through Wednesday (Jan. 20).
The four skiers were prepared with avalanche self-rescue gear and had prepared a plan for their excursion, “unfortunately,” said Webster, “the terrain was not safe.
“The big issue right now with the snowpack is that of large, loose snow avalanches. The conditions right now feature a deep surface layer of unconsolidated snow that will move quite quickly.
“The skier on Monday was caught up in sluff snow which caught up to her as it gathered speed and mass and she was swept down for a reasonably long distance. It was quite a steep feature and it was a loose snow avalanche.”
The avalanche bulletin over the past week has mentioned the potential for backcountry skiers to trigger a loose snow avalanche, rather than a slab avalanche, and Webster said the situation right now, with little new snow recently, is that conditions are featuring a “sugar-type snow without much cohesion. In steeper areas, people have to be aware and if you don’t have the ability to manage the conditions, people should avoid the areas.
“Right now our concern is that if there is new snow over the weaker sugar snow, we could get into a widespread avalanche cycle. A decrease in stability means an increase in avalanche danger.
“People who were out on steep slopes over Christmas need to pull the reins in a little bit due to hazards from snow stability.”
