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Large swaths of Alberta and B.C. backcountry remain at moderate to high risk of avalanches, with a special warning in effect until Thursday.
Avalanche Canada’s special public warning was extended after one person was killed in a snow slide near Revelstoke. The boundaries for the advisory were also adjusted to match current conditions.
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Apart from the fatal Revelstoke incident, other avalanches — natural, accidental and remote-triggered — have been reported over the last week and more, the agency said in a statement on its website.
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“It’s essential to maintain conservative terrain choices until conditions improve,” Avalanche Canada said.
“Recent storms have deposited a significant amount of snow across Western Canada. This new snow sits on prominent weak layers established during drought conditions in February. In some areas, there is more than one weak layer.”
A fatal avalanche happened Sunday at Sale Mountain north of Revelstoke, when a member of a group of snow bike riders was caught in the slide.
Those in the group and others nearby quickly pulled the man from the snow, but even as they were performing CPR, a second avalanche came down and buried some snowmobiles, Avalanche Canada said at the time.
Revelstoke RCMP confirmed that a 58-year-old man from Alberta was taken to hospital by helicopter but died of his injuries.
Avalanche Canada says both slides were caused by snow sitting on weak layers formed in early February.
On the previous weekend, a Lethbridge dentist was killed when his snowmobile was caught in a snow slide at Castle Mountain Ski Resort in Castle Wildland Provincial Park.
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Equally dangerous conditions were reported in mountainous regions of the United States, where there have been 10 avalanche deaths so far in 2024.
Two snowmobilers riding in the Cascade Mountains west of Yakima, Wash., triggered a slide last Friday in a bowl near Darland Mountain, according to the Northwest Avalanche Center. The rider who did not survive was described as fully buried. The rider’s name wasn’t released.
“While we don’t know for sure, this avalanche likely failed on older persistent weak layers in the snowpack,” the organization said, adding that many other areas are dealing with the same problem.
In Idaho, another snowmobiler was killed Friday in an avalanche in the southern Selkirk Mountains in the state’s panhandle region, according to a news release from Boundary County Emergency Management.
A friend riding with the snowmobiler in Idaho was “barely able to outrun the avalanche on his snowmobile,” according to the news release. That snowmobiler went back to search for his friend, who was wearing an avalanche beacon, and found him dead underneath the snow.
Searchers on Saturday recovered the body of snowmobiler Lance J. Gidley, 54, of Sandpoint, Idaho, the Boundary County news release said. Avalanche warnings were in effect for the area at the time.
With files from The Canadian Press and The Associated Press
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