Hiking, Skiing and Snowshoeing
If you’ve ever complained about the Spray Lakes Road above Canmore being closed take a look at the avalanche debris piled across the road. Imagine you and your car somewhere down in the Grassi Lakes Valley! The two photos by Kananaskis Country Public Safety Section are from yesterday’s avalanche control. Wow!
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Mountain Guide Doug Latimer has developed The Avalanche Site, a Canadian website providing public avalanche education. He has gathered together many of the pieces of avalanche safety information scattered around the web into a cohesive resource for anyone going into avalanche terrain. Although still a work in progress (Planning and Terrain are not done yet), there is already lots of content for you to browse.
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Backcountry Avalanche Safety is an up-to-date, tightly written, backcountry-focused book that clearly explains the basics of snow and avalanches using color photos and diagrams. It describes the skills needed to travel through avalanche terrain and provides guidelines for skiing and boarding steep slopes with an emphasis on managing risk.
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The Canadian Avalanche Centre has produced a new version of the Avaluator! So what’s new? Obvious Clues are gone. There is a new Slope Evaluation card that uses a rules-based approach to travel in avalanche terrain, and the old Trip Planner, used as a basis for the Online Avaluator, is still there. Here are the details.
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A new Avalanche Danger Scale was announced today by Environment Minister Jim Prentice. Developed under the leadership of Parks Canada’s Grant Statham, and several years in the making, the new scale will be implemented for next winter, though there’s no reason why you can’t refer to it now.
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Check out this excellent video on Strategic Shovelling from Backcountry Access (BAC). It highlights the research done by Dale Atkins and Bruce Edgerly on the most efficient method of digging your buried companion from under an avalanche. Accompanying text from Backcountry Avalanche Safety.
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An explanation of each level of the Avalanche Danger Scale, including the transitions between levels, signs of instability at each level and the implications of slope angle, aspect and elevation.
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Persistent weak layers such as layers of surface hoar, cohesionless facets and old rain or sun crusts are the usual cause of avalanches that release in old snow layers.
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Avalanche Forecasts are your primary source of information whether skiing, boarding, snowshoeing, or scrambling and climbing in avalanche terrain.
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