Avalanche Awareness: Everything You Need to Know for Safe Winter Adventures in Canada
When it comes to an avalanche, you can’t run or hide. “Escape is difficult,” says Tamara Dykshoorn, avalanche professional member and backcountry guide based in the Rocky Mountains of Alberta. “All winter mountain travellers face avalanche risk, often without realizing it.”
Dykshoorn should know. She has 23 years of experience teaching safe travel in avalanche terrain, and 17 of those include training military personnel in winter mountain travel and avalanche terrain navigation.
“Modern equipment—snowshoes with crampons and microspikes—enables users to access steep terrain more easily than ever before,” says Dykshoorn.
Too often, the ability to get deeper into the winter wonderland, sans slippage, “outpaces users’ ability to recognize hazardous terrain.” There are more unaware, unsuspecting hikers, cross country skiers, snowmobilers, winter campers and snowshoers in the mountains than ever before, reflected in increasing numbers of Search and Rescue call-outs.
The outdoor recreation landscape has also never had greater false senses of security. “Social media or activity tracking applications have transformed backcountry travel by popularizing specific routes, creating packed trails and high-traffic areas. Many recreationists mistakenly believe these indicators mean safety. They see reports of (quote unquote) good conditions from a day or two prior and don’t understand that changing weather can alter snowpack stability within hours,” says Dykshoorn.
False sense of security traps, meet terrain traps.
Landscape features such as creeks, rivers, lakes, gullies, trees, cliff bottoms or other depressions which can catch and hold a person in moving snow are particularly dangerous and difficult rescue-wise.
You may be lulled by and encountering possible traps more often than you realize. For example, Dykshoorn says well-ridden cross-country ski routes in valley bottoms frequently cross avalanche paths.
It’s clear anyone recreating in the snowy mountains should at least suspect and respect avalanche potential, specialized equipment and technical expertise aside.
Avalanche Awareness Basics
An avalanche is the sudden, rapid flow of snow downhill, suffocating and crushing as it moves at speeds up to 160 kilometres per hour and capable of carrying boulders and burying trees.
Whether an avalanche is likely to occur or not depends on the alignment of three things, says Dykshoorn, listing: “Terrain in the 30 to 45-degree range, a snowpack with weak layers or poor bonding between layers and a trigger.” Contrary to cinema depictions, loud noises, including shouts or even an airplane overhead, won’t do it. Real triggers include you or another person, cornice fall or, rarely, a wild animal.
Heavy snowfall, wind and strong sunshine, rain or temperatures around 0 are all ways the snowpack can become unstable and unpredictable, says the Avalanche Canada website.
According to Dykshoorn, there are three major signs of snowpack instability to listen and watch for: “Whumping (sudden collapse of the snowpack), hollow or drum-like sounds underfoot and shooting cracks that radiate from your feet or propagate toward nearby trees or rocks.”
All of these indicate a slab of snow could release underfoot anytime, sending you and a raging river of snow down the mountain. Frequent runouts in the same area create avalanche paths, made obvious by vertical openings in the trees.
When travelling in varied, snow-covered topography, Dykshoorn says recreationists often overestimate consistency and underestimate connectivity. “Snowpack structure varies dramatically from feature to feature and valley to valley,” she says. Because snowpack is rarely consistent over large areas, it must be constantly reevaluated. Plus, don’t forget to look up. Vertically “a small, seemingly safe slope may be connected to a much larger slope above, capable of producing a massive avalanche.”
According to Avalanche Canada, a slope 10 metres by 10 metres in size and smoothly blanketed in snow holds enough to be a danger to a person.
Avalanche Safety is Winter Safety
Winter recreation requires higher levels of planning, preparedness and awareness in general, presenting navigation challenges, freezing temperatures, volatile weather conditions, short days and hindered movement thanks to deep snow.
Dykshoorn considers checking a website with comprehensive avalanche and weather information specific to your area an essential step when planning any backcountry winter trip.
Avalanche.ca is a good place to start. “Each regional forecast provides current weather data, weather forecasts, identified avalanche problems, snowpack information and reports of recent avalanche activity,” she says.
For snowy excursions, recognizing and responding to conditions is just good common sense. Don’t be afraid to pivot to Plan B or cancel a trip if the weather is bad. “Or, when clear signs of snowpack instability are observed as early as the parking area or trailhead,” Dykshoorn says.
Get Some Avalanche Training
Many of the skills needed to, say, analyze the layers of a snowpack or interpret the information in an avalanche forecast, aren’t common knowledge, which is why Dykshoorn recommends Avalanche Safety Training Level 1 (AST 1) at minimum.
“An avalanche course combined with regular use of Avalanche.ca gives you the foundation to make informed decisions in the field,” she says. For example, “a useful practical skill taught in an Avalanche Safety Training Level 1 course is measuring and recognizing slope angle—a fundamental skill for assessing terrain then applying forecast information to the real-world conditions.”
Avalanche training can be eye-opening, both for confidence in winter mountain adventures and survival skills.
“Following a two-day AST 1 course, a young snowmobiler thanked me privately, visibly emotional,” recalls Dykshoorn. “They admitted to frequently seeing shooting cracks ahead of their machine but never understanding the significance—or how close they’d been to triggering a major avalanche. That moment of recognition was powerful. If you travel in the backcountry in winter and in the shoulder seasons or access out-of-bounds terrain at a resort, avalanche training is essential.” Visit Avalanche Canada for a deep tree well of resources, information, online courses, help accessing avalanche safety training and programs for all skill levels.
