TheSnowpit.com News Blog

Tragically, this season is ending in much the same way it began -- in the past week four snowmobile fatalities have occurred in three separate accidents:

• One near Hellroaring Creek (Official CAC report in PDF format) on Wednesday
• Two near McBride, BC on Tuesday
• One near Whitewater, near Blue River (Official CAC report in PDF format) on March 21.

The Canadian Avalanche center has been diligently working on ways to reach the sledding community, and their recent news releases reflect the end of a tough season.

Interestingly, folks out there still have ideas on where the missing link is -- the link that will connect danger and sledding for these folks. One such idea comes from Lou Dawson (scroll to the bottom of the post), namely, that every snowmobile gets sold with a safety booklet for backcountry travel...but that booklet mentions nothing about avalanches.

Real help, unfortunately, has seemed to be elusive so far....

Such hard stuff. My heart goes out to all those involved.

Minutes ago, the Associated Press released news of another snowmobile avalanche fatality near Valemount, BC, Canada, bringing the total number of fatalities in Canada to 15 for 2008/09.

By looking at the current accident numbers for the year, one can see that snowmobiling has, at least for now, risen to the forefront of these report numbers. Good, healing thoughts to the friends and family of those involved. After the huge incident near Fernie over the holiday, western Canada needs a little love and peace.

However, remember that last year, as of the end of January, we had 40 fatal accidents in North America out of a total 52 for the 2007/08 season, far above our current number of 26.

The last few weeks have brought about a number of notable ice collapses, not the least of which included the serac collapse on K2. The unfortunate trend continued with an avalanche on Mont Blanc. The eight bodies of those encased by the avalanche were found presumably via beacon signals (called 'special homing devices' by the media) in a crevasse under more than 160 feet of ice.

Of course, as collapsing snow goes, ice and serac collapses - especially those associated with glaciers - are especially unpredictable. They show little variation over hours and seasons, and are of such mass that the humans involved, rather than being triggers, are sometimes just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Another recent incident - that of two teenage boys being under a collapsing ice cave - serves as a good example. Though they survived, the weight of the collapsing ice from above was enough to break their backs.

Such incidents are always called into question as being indicative of global warming, the ever present whipping boy for modern media. Indeed, as North America finished its worst avalanche season on record, the Mont Blanc incident has pushed the Alps toward their worst avalanche season in over 30 years, and due press attention has been given to both the seasons and speculation, my site included. Although unlucky avalanche seasons should have their occasional return periods just as climax avalanches do, the media does not always draw a clean line between collapsing ice and sliding snow.

In addition, focus always gets paid to the activity of the ice sheets at the poles. Earlier in the year, we saw a great deal of attention given to the Antarctic ice sheet collapse, and now a huge section of ice in Greenland has followed suit. The collapse has also introduced a large crack into the Greenland ice sheet, which has caused all sorts of wild speculation about how much of Greenland will disintegrate in the near future. Interesting as, according to the article, "Scientists blamed global warming for the collapse" of the Antarctic ice sheet, but as for the more recent Greenland collapse:

University of Colorado professor Konrad Steffen, who returned from Greenland on Wednesday and who has studied the Petermann Glacier, said that what Dr Box saw was not too different from what he saw in the 1990s: "The crack is not alarming. I would say it is normal."