Avalanche Awareness Days comes amid considerable risk in Rockies

It’s Avalanche Awareness Days this weekend throughout the Rockies.

An event designed to teach back-country enthusiasts to keep safety in mind and according to the experts, it couldn’t come at a more appropriate time.

Forecasts show several areas near Calgary are at a considerable risk including the Kootenays, the Southern Rockies and Kananaskis Country.

Banff, Yoho as of 7 o’clock Friday morning were at a more moderate rating.

660 Meteorologist David Spence believes some strong winds in the region over the past week are to blame.

“I think what that is probably doing is creating a lot of cornices or overhangs in the snow at the mountain tops, at the ridges and I think that is probably going to lead to a lot of instability in the mountains and avalanches will likely come because of that,” he says.

And Spence adds the forecasts show no signs of improving.

Given the situation, the Outdoor Centre’s Public Avalanche Awareness Programs Coordinator Albi Sole, says there’s no real reason to go into the backcountry unprepared.

In fact, he believes checking out the conditions on the Canadian Avalanche Centre’s website, bringing the proper safety tools and taking the avalanche course are crucial.

“It’s been a very successful program in combination with the bulletins and the public outreach,” Sole says. “When things really get hairy, warnings and so on, we’ve managed to reduce the avalanche fatality rate by at least 50 per cent over the last 10 years.”

“We’ll have a group going to Kananaskis on Saturday and I’ve very confident they’ll find good and safe skiing,” the avalanche expert adds. “But if you don’t read that forecast and don’t think about what it means you could easily jump into something that could have unpleasant consequences.”

Canadian Avalanche Centre has posted a list of the events that will take place over the next two days at more than 40 venues.

For a complete list of what’s happening and where, click here.

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