It’s still early in the season, but B.C’s Southern Interior region is already seeing a significant amount of snowfall, triggering some concerns from Avalanche Canada.
“We’ve had all this new snow. It’s sitting at the surface and we’re about to see a switch to some strong south westerly winds,” said Wendy Lewis of Avalanche Canada.
“All that snow is there to build new wind slabs to be shifted just below ridge crest and build some reactive wind slabs.”
Wind slabs, which are layers of stiff, wind-deposited snow, can range from soft to hard, thin to thick, and are often smooth, rounded, and sometimes sound hollow, according to Avalanche Canada. Blowing snow and cracking or collapsing in drifted snow are clear warning signs of the problem.
The early season snowfall is creating conditions that are way ahead of schedule for some Okanagan ski resorts like Big White, where the base is 111 cm.
“This is one of the better openings I can remember in my time here. Everybody is talking about how great the conditions are,” said Trevor Hannah, vice president of hospitality at Big White.
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“We’ve had 12 cm overnight and the conditions are mid-season right now it seems.”
At Big White Ski Resort, skiers and snowboarders are urged to stay within boundary lines.
All out-of-bound areas are marked with signs to protect people from potentially hazardous terrain as those areas are not patrolled and can be dangerous.
“The word this year is vigilant. You have to be vigilant because the potential for very big avalanches is just going to ramp up this season,” said Big White’s lead forecaster, Doug Lundgren.
“The issue is there’s going to be so much more snow this year with this La Nina event. So people have been kind of getting comfortable in the backcountry in low snow years, but this is a different kind of year.”
One incident was reported through Avalanche Canada’s Mountain Information Network online last week. The report says a group was out skiing near Revelstoke when a slab was triggered 30 metres above one of the skiers and carried them into a fence of dense trees.
The skier was found partially buried upright with snow to their chest.
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