One person is suspected dead after an avalanche near Mount Mackie Monday afternoon.
Paula Gaul, who runs Big Red Cats cat-skiing company with her husband near Rossland, B.C., said they got a call around 3:30 p.m. from a group of recreational snowmobilers who had been using her company's tracks and then skiing in the backcountry yesterday afternoon.
One of the four was trapped in the avalanche, she said, adding that her company was helping with the recovery late yesterday. She got the call from someone who had just recovered his friend from the snow, "only to find that he couldn't save him."
"His friends uncovered him, and apparently it was pretty obvious that he was not alive."
RCMP and search and rescue teams were investigating yesterday evening. Police wouldn't confirm the death, believed to be the first Canadian avalanche fatality of the season.
Ms. Gaul said her company knows that the area, on an avalanche-prone cliffband, is especially dangerous in unstable conditions like yesterday's.
"They were in an area which we knew was prone to avalanches…It's marked right on our maps," she said in an interview. "They aren't avalanche professionals, so they wouldn't have known. It's not marked - it's the backcountry."
Ms. Gaul said her company wouldn't have taken customers out in that area yesterday, when conditions were particularly unstable. Tests throughout the day confirmed this, she said.
Most of the snowmobiling clubs nearby don't use her company's tracks, she said, but some recreational users are tempted by the backcountry allure and aren't as familiar with its risks.
"There's a cliffband in that particular area and just the shape of the mountain, when you get a heavy load of snow it will break away and slide more than other areas might," she said.
"But, you know, it also might look like a particularly nice area to ski."
Ms. Gaul said she doesn't know the snowmobile skiers, but because they knew her number and phoned her for help, she fears they are locals.
Long periods of no snow create ice crystals called "surface hoar" that don't bond to the snow. When there's a sudden large dump of snow on top of that layer, it can settle quickly and the new layer can slide off, sometimes breaking off lower levels, as well. "Although the avalanche didn't have any involvement by Big Red Cats," Ms. Gaul said, "it is in our tenure area, so our guides will be studying the avalanche carefully, and we have offered to assist in the investigation."
Just over a year ago, eight snowmobilers from Sparwood, B.C., were killed in an avalanche near Fernie.