The warm weather in Alberta has brought with it an increased risk for avalanches in the mountains this week.
The avalanche risk is at “considerable” in Banff, Kootenay and Yoho National Parks, in both the tree line and above. The risk is high in the little Yoho area near Field.
“There is a lot of uncertainty surrounding the intensity of precipitation amounts in the region. Certainly in areas where the freezing level is forecast to rise in combination with the potential for snowfall, the avalanche danger will be elevated,”Avalanche Canada stated in the warning issued.
There have already been some slides in the Banff area on Cascade Mountain in a popular ice climbing area, but nobody was hurt.
Highway 1 was closed Wednesday for several hours in both directions near Golden because of avalanche debris removal. The highway was open to traffic by Wednesday afternoon.
“A lot of Calgarians would have noticed the lovely temperatures finally this weekend. What that meant for us in the mountains is that we had a lot of wind east of the continental divide in the little Yoho region, we had 25 to 40 centimetresof snow,” Lisa Paulson, a visitor safety specialist for Parks Canada, said.
“In many areas, the warming, the wind, and the snow-loading has stressed some underlying weaknesses in the Banff-Yoho-Kootenay region. We have a weakness that’s right near the base, it’s sugary-weak snow that, any time we have a firmer layer over top of that, that layer becomes stressed, it presents itself as a higher avalanche hazard and a risk to folks.”
Paulson said the likelihood of triggering the wind slabs and steep persistent slabs will decrease as we head into the weekend, because the temperatures are going to get a little cooler.
“The passage of that system has pretty much passed. We might see fewer natural avalanches, but it’s still possible for skiers (backcountry users) to trigger those avalanches if they get into the right feature,” Paulson said.
Get the most up to date info on avalanche warnings on Avalanche Canada’s website, because conditions are always changing.
With files from Jayme Doll
Comments