Five snowmobilers were killed in a huge avalanche in the western Canadian province of British Columbia, the provincial coroner’s service said Saturday.
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The B.C. Coroners Service has taken over the investigation and has ordered the Renshaw snowmobiling area to be closed while an avalanche technician surveys the area.
Grierson said that Rod Whelpton, a member of the Robson Valley Search and Rescue team, and another group of snowmobilers were in the area at the time, and came across the avalanche.
Five people are dead after they got engulfed by an avalanche in the Mount Renshaw area in British Columbia, Canada.
Mason says conditions in the area were sunny at the time, and despite a heightened risk of an avalanche, there was no formal warning in place.
Cpl. Jay Grierson offered his condolences to the families and said the small village on the Alberta-B.C. boundary was deeply affected by the deaths.
Enjoying the outdoors with friends and family was everything to Garley, known as Big John, a towering “teddy bear” from Stony Plain who died in the avalanche.
In March, 2015, two Alberta men died while snowmobiling the Dore River Basin.
Walline advises all snowmobilers to take safety courses to be able to better read the terrain, and to talk to more experienced riders about daily risks.
An afternoon snowmobiling in the Canadian Rocky Mountains turned deadly for five people, after a powerful avalanche swept them away.
Their being quickly on scene in the wake of the avalanche allowed them to rescue several other avalanche victims from the other snowmobiling groups, providing some good news in the shadow of the five tragic deaths. “We saw (the avalanche area) and said, ‘Why would you ever go up there?'”
“Many of the individuals involved had self-rescued and four of the deceased had already been dug from the snow”, said Grierson.
Karl Klassen of Avalanche Canada said the “very large, significant” avalanche appears to be human-triggered, but he did not elaborate.
“It was a very normal day, a nice day”, he said.
Ron Willert, who runs an online forum for snowmobilers called snowandmud.com, said the disaster hit “too close to home”.
“When you have a lot of people killed in one incident, it can tell you a lot of things”, said Clayton. “There was no avalanche activity in the area I was playing around”.
“You know we have to remember that the community has a population of just under 600 people, so a very significant response being very well done, and I am certainly am thinking about those incredible people that respond at their own risk.”
Haegli said that he hasn’t heard exactly what happened in this case, but that human-triggered avalanches can occur when people disturb different layers of snow, called snowpack.
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Neil Petryshen, from Saskatoon, said he and his friends hadn’t absorbed the loss yet, but suggested the tragedy wouldn’t stop them from going out again.
