An Eventful Day

It was an eventful day in the backcountry yesterday. We skied a steep east facing line off White Queen below treeline. Our test pit showed the mid-February layer down 105 cm; we got no reaction on it, or any other significant results in the snow-pit. We still skied steeper openings in the trees one at a time, but, apart from some sluffing, nothing moved.

Returning to ridge top, we noted a few cowboys skiing straight down the open east face of White Queen (known as Black Queen for some inexplicable reason). Most astonishing however, were the two folks who removed their skis and set up camp right below the steepest section of the east face out in the open and lingered there for at least half an hour. These people were right under the people skiing the east face, and, had an avalanche occurred they would have been hit and hit hard.

At the end of the day, we descended the west side of White Queen and noted a large avalanche that had propagated at least a couple of hundred metres across a popular ski run called the Whales Back. Later, I found out that this avalanche had been triggered by a solo snowboarder, who, due to good luck not good management, escaped off to one side. Another one who would have been hit and hit hard.

Finally, Nelson SAR was called out to evacuate two snowmobilers who triggered a size 2.5 avalanche in the backcountry north of Nakusp. No other details on that one.

Simply put, dialing it back in the first 24 hours after a storm would have prevented all these incidents and requires nothing more than being able to tell time. Something we all learnt in kindergarten.

Triggered by a solo snowboarder