Five years ago, condition reports for the South Peace area were sparse, depending on locals to submit reports.
And while rider submitted reports are still an important part of avalanche reporting, there are other resources available.
For the last few years, for instance, there has been a weather station installed at the Core Lodge, offering riders real-time weather information about Tumbler Ridge’s most popular riding area.
As well, Avalanche Canada has a Northern Rockies Field Team that has been in operation since 2019. “We are getting real time snowpack data every single day from that field team,” says Avalanche Canada Forecaster Tyson Rettie. “So if there is an increase in avalanche hazard, that info is going to be in that forecast every evening.”
That team is out seven days a week going to popular riding areas in the North Rockies. “They roam throughout the Cariboo and North Rockies region,” says Rettie. “So, one day they’ll get out to Tumbler Ridge, the next they’ll go out to Kakwa, up to the Pine Pass. Further south they’ll go down to Renshaw and areas around Valemont.”
There are also a couple of part time team members who will also submit reports. As well, there are a number of winter tourism operators and other professionals who will submit snow reports, like heli-skiing and cat-skiing operations.
And of course there’s the information that backcountry explorers can submit directly. This goes to a service called the Mountain Information Network. “We go through that every single day,” he says.
But, not everybody submits reports, so Avalanche Canada also keeps an eye on social media, looking for people posting about conditions, close calls, pictures of avalanches and other helpful information. “Over time, the region is becoming less and less data sparse with more and more recreational users submitting reports, with our full time field team, more weather station information and more reports from professional operators,” says Rettie. “It’s definitely changing. It’s becoming a more data rich region. Not quite to the extent of our southern forecast regions, but we’re definitely getting more and more information.”
This year, Avalanche Canada is changing how it’s presenting that information with the creation of a dynamic forecast region system. “That allows us to redraw the boundaries based on conditions,” says Rettie. “If you look on our map today, everything in the Northern Rockies region is currently combined with parts of the Cariboo, because the snowpack conditions between the two are quite similar. Last year there were many times when, say the Renshaw area had avalanche hazard for similar to that of the Cariboo, but the rest of the Northern Rockies would be different, and we would really struggle to accurately portray that. Now what we can do is just draw the line around the Renshaw area, include it with the Cariboo, then separate the rest of the Rockies. That’s another tool that we’ve now got available to us to better relay information to the public.”
For more information, or to submit a report, visit www.avalanche.ca.
Trent is the publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines.
