Avalanche Canada’s nationwide initiative Avalanche Awareness Days is coming to Sun Peaks in a collaboration with Helly Hansen at the top of the Sunburst Express chairlift.
On Feb. 2, the Sun Peaks Snow Safety team and Helly Hansen will be holding two sessions of educational and fun activities for a maximum of 24 people per event.
Registration spots for one of three morning sessions on locating buried beacons and a longer session in the afternoon where participants will set out to locate and dig up strike plates are still open to be filled.
Avalanche Awareness Day events
Those interested in participating are welcome to sign up in advance for either Buried Beacons in the morning, Snow Search and Rescue in the afternoon or both, assistant patrol director for Sun Peaks Resort LLP Leigh Purvis said.
The Buried Beacons session will offer participants an opportunity to snag Helly Hansen swag with transceivers within the beacon basin area at the top of Sunburst.
In the longer two-hour snow search event, from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., participants will probe for buried strike plates.
“If it’s groups of two, then your teammate and you will have to coordinate your digging to get down to the strike,” Purvis added. “Then there’ll be a neckie or a sticker, or whatever Helly Hansen is going to bury there.”
Patrol will also have its own booth alongside Helly Hansen’s with Avalanche Canada stickers, neck warmers and informational and rescue gear, which will be out for demonstrations.
“All the patrollers there will be members of the avalanche team,” Purvis said. “So they’re quite knowledgeable about all things avalanche related.”
A major point of information he hopes to instill in participants and anyone else interested is a reminder to enter the backcountry through the two main access points on the mountain.
At each gate, one out by Tod Lake and one just off the top of the West Bowl, a sign has a QR code to prompt visitors to look at the daily avalanche forecast.
“It has a map of the backcountry terrain where you’re going, and it talks about the complexity of the terrain,” Purvis said.
A box called a transceiver checker is also at these locations, which will flash a green light to indicate when your transceiver’s turned on and transmitting.
“We encourage people to go through these two gates, so you’re not ducking ropes, you’re going through a specific exit point,” he said, explaining that it both prompts people to turn their transceiver on and inspires people who aren’t properly equipped to see more clearly that they’re crossing a boundary and going into uncontrolled terrain.
Ideally, there will be at least one avalanche awareness event each year going forward.
Last February and continuing this year as well on Feb. 3 and Feb. 4, Sun Peaks ski patrol got involved with grades eight to 12 students from Sun Peaks Secondary Academy for indoor and outdoor education sessions on avalanche awareness and safety.
“We’re in the second year of working with the school groups,” he said. “Which is a great way to spread avalanche information amongst the youth.”
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