Skier dies after avalanche in Pemberton, B.C.

This story is getting national headlines. A group of skiers went into the back country and 3 of them got caught in an avalanche and one person paid with his life. The incident happened yesterday afternoon and 2 of the surviving skiers went for help and although the details are still sketchy at this point, the 2 came across some other skiers who had a SAT phone and were able to call for help. The lateness of the day yesterday along with weather and high risk to SAR teams delayed rescue efforts until early today where upon they found that one skier who got swept down the avalanche succumbed overnight to trauma injuries.

I would not think even having a SPOT or PLB would of been of any help here as again, the time of day and weather would of still prevented a rescue.

The back country here is at extreme risk and in the past week, there has been numerous media reports and advisories to stay out of the back country.

"Unfortunately this is an example of the extreme, extreme risk in the backcountry area of British Columbia. The avalanche risk is high. The warnings have gone out. Unfortunately this gentleman paid with his life," said Thiessen (RCMP Sgt.)

I know the area very well and have hiked and camped nearby many times. Also several of my pictures I have posted here, have been taken in the general area. This is a rugged, steep and unforgiving place to be anytime of the year.

In this link, Mt. Caspar is in the middle. There is a highway just to the north of the mountain where I would surmise that SAR staged from.

News Link 1

News Link 2

News Link 3

News Link 4

He knew the avalanche risk is extreme and still went anyway, not much more to say about that.

this is what they get for challenging mother nature, i guess? such an irony!


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As always, one wonders what details the press missed. Hopefully a professional report will be posted on one of the avy websites, if I see one I will pass it on. While it is easy to be critical of their desciion to be out in such conditions, it is also worthwhile to remember that it appeaars that this was a highly experienced team. Even in times of extreme avy conditions, it is possible for an experienced team to travel safely (although clearly that didn't work in this case).

Things they did right:

1.Only one skier was caught. Standard travel protocal when crossing or descending a suspect slope is that only one person is exposed at at time. The others stay in a safe spot, observing the skier and ready to rescue if necessary.

2. It was a party of four. After the accident, one stayed with the injured skier, and two traveled for help.

3. They apparently had adequate gear and skills to survive the night.

According to one of the articles, the skier was injured at approximately 3:30pm and the RCMP was called around 4:30pm.

Again, according to reports, poor conditions prevented launching a helicopter. The victim perished before rescuers arrived overnight. It doesn't seem like the 45-60 minutes of delay before the rescue was launched would have made a difference in this case.

Like you, I would like to see the official report. However keep in mind that this group was not traveling through the area, they were actually skiing in the avalanche area. I am one to criticize based on early reports. However as I posted earlier, I know the area very well and cannot comprehend why anyone with their experience would be skiing in that area? Especially after this past week where the local media has had multiple updates daily with the latest extreme avalanche conditions.



The latest update today from the RCMP today, demonstrates that this was not the case.

It is still being determined what caused the avalanche, but according to RCMP Sgt. Peter Thiessen three of the four skiers went up a slope to ski down for the last run while Mackenzie remained near the bottom with equipment issues.

When the avalanche came down it swept Mackenzie 1,800-metres downhill into a treed area. The companions located him, still alive but critically injured at the time, and two left immediately to get help.

Again, any future official report will give more details then what is available now...

It appears the skier with equipment issues left the area prior to the avalanche. McKenzie was one of the three that went up-slope to ski down.

One of the problems with these kind of cases is that often the authorities put out warnings of dubious value that people have learned to ignore because in most cases there is not anywhere near the risk that the warning might have you believe.

Sort of like the "extreme cold" warnings now being issued. It is not more cold than people are generally used to and know how to handle already. It seems pointless to issue the warning in the first place since it will just teach people to ignore the warnings.

A more common problem is that people who are highly trained and experienced sometimes tend to cut their margins thinner and thinner. This may well be what happened in this case. Somewhat like those who buy a sports car that takes curves better.....then drive faster on winding roads.

Jill Fredston, a well known avalanche expert based here in Anchorage, once commented at an avalanche class I attended that one of the most frustrating things for her was that some people took the classes, and then skied more dangerous situations, thinking that they could fine tune their risk management. It can work....for awhile. Jill and her husband Doug Fesler have now retired from teaching avalanche classes, and no longer participate much with the local SAR community. One rumor I've heard is that they just got tired of recovering the bodies of friends and former students.

Latest, local news on TV stated that the 3 skiers were on a slope and were assessing the avalanche risk. The avalanche started then swept the victim down the slope.

As always, these reports are changing almost hourly and more then likely to change again..

The latest report indicates the skier was a ski patroller at the Whistler Blackcomb resort (IIRC the site of many events at the Winter Olympics). Very experienced, very familiar with local conditions, and well respected in the skiing community.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2011/12/30/bc-avalache-pemberton.html

From the RCMP press conference: "They were extremely well equipped, they were very experienced, they knew what they were doing . . . unfortunately, it was not enough and once Mother Nature kicked in, there was nothing that they could do."

The initial rescue helicopter had to turn back due to darkness, and a second SAR flight was turned back due to weather conditions. Some comments on the story wonder if a SPOT/PLB might have brought rescue before nightfall, increasing the chances of survival considerably. It took an hour for the other two skiers to get out of the area and raise the alarm.

I think AKSAR's comment that "people who are highly trained and experienced sometimes tend to cut their margins thinner and thinner" has a great deal of wisdom in it. All of us who travel in backcountry accept a certain level of risk. But we may be inclined to take greater risks in areas we are familiar with.

Another avalanche related death yesterday.

Another skier has died in an avalanche in British Columbia, this time near Revelstoke, RCMP have confirmed.

The unidentified male who died was in a group of 11 people who were on a heli-skiing excursion, Cpl. Dan Moskaluk reported on Twitter.

The skier was one of four people who were buried when the avalanche struck Friday afternoon, about 35 kilometres southwest of Revelstoke, Moskaluk said.


As for the more greater risk taking vs familiarity of the area that one may be more familiar with, I don't fully agree. Over the years, I have found that I take less risk as I know the areas I go to on a regular basis can be brutally unforgiving if you push the risk envelope. My SO who has more years then me, of in the field experience in some the harshest environments around the world agrees. We aggregate our collective knowledge when planning then benchmark the risk and then decide if that risk level is too high then knock it down a notch or two...

Perfect example is today. In about a 1/2 hour, we are going out in the back country for a day trip. Sure it would be nice to take the snowshoes and get up into the higher country on a nice clear day to see the views, but with the current high avalanche ratings, it is not worth the risk no matter how much experience we have...

To quote a famous movie line - "You have chosen wisely.."

Note that I said ".........people who are highly trained and experienced sometimes tend to cut their margins thinner and thinner." Some people get overconfident of their ability to manage risk, and some people get more careful as they learn how great the risks are.

Like you, I have gotten much more conservative over the years. In my case it was a combination of things. Regarding avalanches, as I've learned more I've realized how tricky and unpredictable they can be. As both of these cases in Canada demonstrate, even people with a lot more expertise than me sometimes make mistakes, and people die. If both a Whistler ski patroller and a CMH heli ski guide can get it wrong....then I obviously need to be even more conservative.

Also, I have participated in several avalanche body recovery missions over the years. I've seen first hand the effects on the family and friends of the deceased. I don't want to put my loved ones through that.

In the same line, I am now basically a teetotaler, a bit of a shift from my younger days. I gave up alcohol after numerous body recoveries of individuals with substantial and levels of alcohol upon autopsy. It gets to you after awhile.

I'm glad to hear about people who, like me, are very conservative regarding backcountry risks. As for avalanche terrain, well, it gives me the willies. Too many variables.

But downhill skiers are drawn to fresh powder. Do they have a different risk vs. reward calculation?

And I wonder: if those skiers were from a different area, without intimate local knowledge, would they have given the avalanche warnings more weight?

The first person who got died, he and his group were from the local area of Whistler and as you pointed out in another post, they were very experienced and well respected skiers amongst their peers.

The second person was not from the area and was apparently using the services of a certified guide. Heli-skiing here is highly regulated and it is very probable that there will be some very direct investigations centered on the company that employs the guide.

Just to touch on the first incident and the various comments about the accuracy of the news media. There seems to be a big discrepancy as to how far the skier was carried by the avalanche to his death. CBC and other media reported he was swept down 1800 meters which is just over a mile. The issue with this is that highest peak in the map that I posted yesterday is only 2400 meters (7780 feet.) The 2 lane highway that is immediately to the north of the peaks is just over 1200 meters above sea level (I have the exact GPS elevation reading in one of my notebooks somewhere.) So if you do the math, that skier could not of been swept down 1800 meters and I more inclined to believe that the skier was swept down 300 meters as reported earlier by some.

I should make it clear that I'm not an expert in this field by any measure, so I'm hardly qualified to comment let alone to criticize.

(I generally travel solo. My solution to avalanche hazards is to go places where there aren't any. Yep, absolutely chicken, but then again a live chicken.)

I'm just trying to understand more broadly the psychology, the thinking process, the assessment of risk vs. reward.

I know skiers and snowmobilers who have had extremely close calls, up to and including shovels and CPR. But their accounts suggest that this is a badge of honour, a rite of passage, a story to be retold over and over. Yet if this were to happen to me, I would consider it a serious and sobering miscalculation -- an embarrassing failure.

I would appreciate the perspectives of people who understand these communities and their cultures better than I.

I have seen something similar with scuba divers. I actually encountered a diver who was bragging about his trip to a decompression chamber after getting the bends as the result of an improperly executed dive. This was in the era before decomp meters - one had to set limits based only on dive tables.

For myself, I had already decided that if I ever did that, I would stop diving. Different strokes for different folks.

Basic human psychology: You accept a certain risk level to get a reward. Familiarization with the danger (you've been skiing many times and nothing happens) means you feel the danger as less threathening - it becomes an abstract or immaginary thing, you think about it but there are no feelings of danger. On the other hand, skiing in powder feels really awesome. Do the math...

The only known remedy is education and training, but that gives no warranty, just better decision making tools.

Despite best efforts and really skilled personell there is - and always will be - a certain random factor in avalanches.

An AvaLung only increases your odds of not dying from suffocation if you are buried. Even with an AvaLung, if you are buried more than a meter or so, the weight of the snow pressing down on you is such that you cannot expand your chest to breathe. Sort of a boa constrictor effect. I helped with a body recovery last March at Hatch Peak where the skier was buried about 14 ft (4.25 meters) deep. An AvaLung would have done him no good whatsoever.

In the Pemberton incident, the skier was not buried, but died from trauma. Big slides are increadibly powerfull. Somewhere I have a photo I took in spring, after the snow had melted, of a place where one of our roads had been blocked by a slide. The guard rail is bent into a pretzel, and the guard rail posts are sheard off flush with the ground. A person caught in something like that will likely be killed outright, irrespective of whether they are buried or not.

The bottom line is that most avalanches are triggered by the victim, or someone in his/her group. While gear like beacons, AvaLungs, etc, increase your odds of survival, the best chance of survival is to not get caught to begin with.

Today, two more skiers were caught in an avalanche near Pemberton and not very far from the 1st avalanche a few days ago. These 2 people were lucky and and the person with the head injuries may live to see another day. Again, people need to stay out of the back country...

Note that Joffre Lake is just directly west of the Google Earth map screen shot I posted a few days ago.

Police say two backcountry skiers were caught in an avalanche east of Pemberton, B.C., Monday afternoon Police say one of the skiers suffered head and leg injuries in the avalanche. It is not clear if the second skier was injured.

Another news link

What about an ABS Bag? I've thought about one for snowmobiling.

I don't know much about them, other than what I have read. It sounds like they have helped in some cases, as have AvaLungs.

In general, I think anything that improves your odds of survival is probably a good thing. However, what I don't like to see is when people think a new peice of gear makes it OK to do dumber things. (I'm not accusing anyone on ETS forum of that, by the way. ) I try to view gear like beacons, AvaLungs, etc just like seat belts in my car. They are a back up in case I make a mistake or have bad luck, not an excuse to drive faster.

By the way, I'm sure you know this already, but when snowmobiling, make sure you cary your rescue gear (shovel and probe) on your person, not strapped to your machine. You don't want to find yourself lying on top of a slide, with your buddy buried, and you can't dig him out because your machine and rescue gear are also buried.

Have fun in the snow, but stay safe.

Here's some interesting reading in regard to avalanches and expert predictions:

http://www.edmontonjournal.com/news/mountain+snow+doesn+care+expert/6249053/story.html

A pretty good summary.

Locally, we see an increasing focus on education and training. It has been shown that following simple rules (example: Avalanche danger scale 4: Stay in slopes below 30 degrees would; scale 3: < 35 degrees; scale 2: < 40 degrees) really should have avoided about 80-90% of recent years avalanche fatalities (depending on what particular rule set you use.

The human factor is the most important factor to control. Any avalanche education that doesn't tell you in what way peer pressure and your personal motivation will change your danger assessment is a waste. If you want to go skiing you will look for clues that confirm the notion that conditions really aren't too bad today, anyway.

What I find interesting is the current development of new schemas for decision making for skiers. A fixed formula for making decision at pre-determined stages of the trip is part of the mix. The different factors (terrain, snow conditions, group composition and so on) are being assessed individually, and then summarized. This makes it less likely that confirmation bias (I'd LOVE to ski today) will make you ignore clues that indicate negative conditions for today's planned trip.

A valuable observation. The momentum of a group can drag you into situations you would normally shy away from (especially if operating solo).

Sadly, another avalanche fatality in today's paper. I would not speak ill of the dead, but I really have to wonder why they decided to go up in those conditions.

http://www.edmontonjournal.com/news/killed+avalanche/6261598/story.html

"A snowmobiler is dead after being buried in an avalanche Tuesday afternoon outside of Whistler, B.C.

Shawn Wilson of Blackcomb Snowmobile said the avalanche occurred on Powder Mountain just after 3 p.m. It covered a one-kilometre swath of land before sliding into Grizzly Lake, about 20 kilometres west of Whistler.

A witness said that the man was buried under at least one metre of snow for more than 20 minutes.

According to police, the man was part of a group of five snowmobiling in the area when two of the men — one being the victim — attempted to climb a steep slope, otherwise known as "highmarking," and triggered the avalanche.

Tuesday was a sunny day on the slopes with 30 centimetres of fresh powder in the last 48 hours."

Had a chance to get out in the back country for a few hours early this morning. It is scarily dangerous out in the mountains today and it seemed like every breath, every small sound or any sudden movement would trigger an avalanche even though we were safely away from any imminent avalanche threat. Needless to say, we kept to the wider valleys and away from any steep slopes etc.

Today, the Canadian Avalanche Centre issued an almost unprecedented in scope, special avalanche warning (another link) that literally covers over 100,000 square miles. In my lifetime and with a few decades of outdoor experience, I cannot recall a warning encompassing such a vast area.

To give a sense of scale, Prince George mentioned in the above link, is roughly 470 miles from the Canada/USA border and about 450 miles inland from the Pacific coast.

Needless to say, even with the warnings, people will still be out and I would not be surprised at all to see some deaths reported in the next few days...

You called it.

"A snowmobiler has been killed and five others have been injured after separate avalanches in B.C.'s backcountry Friday."

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2012/03/09/bc-avalanche-snowmobiler.html