Parks Canada hosted a free avalanche awareness night on Feb. 17, that was well attended by backcountry users of all kinds. 

The talk came in light of several deadly avalanches in the B.C. interior, and while there haven’t been any incidents in the Jasper National Park, it was a great opportunity to get updated on new research into predicting avalanches and updates to avalanche bulletins. 

Grant Statham, an avalanche risk specialist for Parks Canada, presented new research on Old Deep Slab (ODS) instabilities that is being conducted in Alberta and B.C.

ODS avalanches are essentially massive multiple metre-deep avalanches that are largely unsurvivable, but usually not triggered by skiers. They happen in deeper snow, are usually older featuring many layers to the snow pack,  and occur at higher elevation and at a steeper incline.

Garth Lemke, public safety specialist with Jasper National Park, said these avalanches often break trees in their path and surprise the backcountry user. 

“When they go, they have a lot of force behind them,” he said. 

Lemke said an ODS avalanche can create up to 80 Gs of force on an individual, which can cause severe injury. For comparison, a fighter pilot can endure up to seven to nine Gs before losing consciousness. Research on the force of avalanches was conducted using dummies equipped with G sensors. 

“You can imagine what that would do to your bones,” Lemke said. He added that most of the time avalanche-related fatalities occur due to injury before suffocation from being buried beneath the snow. 

Most research is conducted on avalanches that are only about a metre deep, but often fatalities occur in slides that are much deeper.

Statham said that about 10 per cent of avalanches are from ODS instabilities. The Rocky Mountains have a higher percentage than the coastal region. 

Right now, avalanche specialists like Statham are trying to come up with more information on what causes these massive avalanches, in hopes that they can better predict them. 

Jasper National Park has been recording data and reporting ODS instabilities to a general database. Researchers then use that information, and try to visit the site of recent ODS avalanches. Lemke said usually when an ODS slide happens in Jasper National Park, it is too dangerous for researchers to safely get on the ground to investigate. This has complicated research in all regions where ODS instabilities occur. So far the information has been collected over 10 seasons. It has been discovered that the instabilities can lie dormant for a long period of time and then “wake up”, causing a massive, destructive avalanche. They usually shake loose from a layer deep in the snow pack, sometimes even on the ground. 

In recent weeks there haven’t been any local ODS slides, but Lemke said a few happened about four weeks ago. The risk of these massive avalanches has tapered off in the Jasper backcountry, he added. 

The cold winter storm blowing in Jasper on Feb. 28 should not have caused a significant change in the avalanche rating for the park, Lemke said. Usually things don’t change until there is upwards of 10 centimetres of fresh snow. Only about 5 cm fell as of the Fitzhugh’s deadline. 

Statham also presented a new up and coming research method on vapour transfer within the snow pack that is being conducted using an infrared camera. 

“It’s a bit of an eye opener,” Lemke said. 

The new research is showing the effects of underlying terrain such as rocks and bushes, that could be contributing to the different heat levels in the layers of the snow pack. 

The information is new, and avalanche experts hope to explore it further. At the moment, Jasper National Park is not using the information in the field until more is available, but it could mean an exciting innovation. 

“It helps us understand the bigger picture,” Lemke said. 

The second speaker of the night, Scott Thumlert, applied snow and avalanche research council specialist from the University of Calgary, discussed the recent changes to American and Canadian avalanche bulletins. The changes mean that travellers will fully understand the risks they are taking when they access new backcountry areas, because the rating systems will all be the same. 

“If we travel down there (U.S.), or vice versa, we’re all talking the same language,” Lemke said. 

Lemke along with other park avalanche specialists conducted avalanche control exercises along the Icefields Parkway on Feb. 16. Lemke said they were prevented from flying into higher areas with a helicopter due to the weather, but they managed to complete all their lower targets such as Parker’s Ridge and others along the highway. 

“We’re kind of at the whim of the clouds,” Lemke said of the higher targets. 

Overall the avalanche work was a success. Lemke said there are no plans to attempt to hit the higher targets at the moment.