The Canadian Avalanche Centre is considering an extended avalanche warning for the North Rockies region, an area where a 47-year-old Alberta man was killed in an avalanche Sunday afternoon.
"It's not because there are avalanches crashing down all over the place," the centre's operations manager John Kelly said. "It's because we think that there's likelihood that people will make a mistake and trigger an avalanche."
The North Rockies warning, in effect since Jan. 21, includes the Tumbler Ridge area where Jean Guy Couture of Grande Cache, Alta., died while snowmobiling with four friends Sunday afternoon.
According to RCMP spokesman Inspector Tim Shields, the "experienced" snowmobiling group was equipped with adequate avalanche safety equipment including probes, shovels and avalanche transceivers.
Mr. Couture was the only person on the slope when the avalanche occurred and he was buried under two metres of snow, Insp. Shields said. It took the four other group members 20 to 30 minutes to find him. They immediately performed CPR on Mr. Couture but were unable to resuscitate him.
Two group members stayed with Mr. Couture while the two others left the scene for help. The RCMP and search and rescue volunteers located the group and removed them from the area Monday morning.
"Too many sledders are lulled into a false sense of security because they haven't seen localized avalanche activity," Insp. Shields said.
According to Mr. Kelly, the additional weight of a human or snowmobile could trigger avalanches in "tricky zones" with unpredictable snow pack. He said that unstable snow pack and varied weather patterns across B.C. pose hazardous conditions for recreational backcountry users.
The Canadian Avalanche Centre urges backcountry users to avoid avalanche zones and complete avalanche safety training courses before travelling into backcountry areas.
Avalanche conditions can be monitored online at www.avalanche.ca