Rabbit Ears Pass – In the game of snowmobiling, the score is often kept in the shape of a teardrop. As modern machines push farther out and up into the mountains, the popular pastime known as “high marking” is increasingly evident on steep snow-covered faces in the form of a sort of half-bull’s-eye shape of tracks where the maker of the outermost is crowned king.
It isn’t a game for everyone, but industry experts recognize the passion for extreme snowmobiling has grown along with the increases in power and speed of the machines. As a result, so has the number of avalanche-related snowmobile deaths, more than 60 percent of which are attributed to high marking, according to renowned avalanche experts Jill Fredston and Doug Fesler of the Alaska Mountain Safety Center.
Although there is still plenty of snow on the ground, the winter of 2006-07 is likely to go down in history as the first in which snowmobilers outnumber skiers and snowboarders killed in avalanches in North America. With the peak January-March window for avalanche fatalities closed, statistics from the Colorado Avalanche Information Center, or CAIC, show that 13 of the 26 recorded avalanche deaths in the U.S. and Canada this winter were snowmobilers, equaling the number of skiers, snowboarders, snowshoers and climbers combined.
Last season, the snow scientists at the National Avalanche Center counted 14 avalanche-related snowmobiling deaths out of 32 deaths in North America.
Attitude, education
With this season’s statistical bump, CAIC figures indicate snowmobiling has surpassed climbing and backcountry skiing as the top recreational activity associated with avalanche fatalities since records were first kept in 1950. Since 1996, CAIC statistics show that 117 avalanche deaths among American snowmobilers have accounted for nearly three times the fatalities suffered by backcountry skiers.
But that isn’t to say that everyone who goes out for a joy ride on a snowmobile is risking his life. With about 1.7 million registered snowmobilers in the U.S. and nearly 800,000 in Canada, the vast majority of motorized sledders remain unaffected by the increased mortality rate. Ultimately, experts say, it comes down to attitude and education.
“Ninety percent of the people out here never have any issues,” said Dan Galecki, owner of Walden-based Spindrift Snowmobile Tours and a veteran member of Jackson County Search and Rescue. “It’s that 10 percent of people who have 90 percent of the problems.”
Galecki’s tour company specializes in the type of riding that most dedicated snowmobilers prefer – family or group outings that make use of the vast trail systems in places such as Wyoming’s Snowy Range or Rabbit Ears Pass between Kremmling and Steamboat Springs.
There is ample opportunity to free ride the surrounding open meadows and rolling knolls, and even occasions to high-mark on well-traveled slopes where regular snowmobile traffic compacts the snow.
“Most people are wise to their limitations,” Galecki said. “But out of a big group, there’s always somebody who pushes their limits.”
Rider triggered avalanche
The group doesn’t necessarily need to be large, however, as evidenced during a recent outing with friend Eric Shaub of Fort Collins, when a reckless lone rider blazed through the bowl they were riding in and triggered an avalanche “big enough to kill you” after jumping a small overhanging cornice.
“I could make a list of all the things that guy did wrong,” Galecki said as he studied the nearly foot-deep crown. “He came all the way out here without a partner, ran up the hill, triggered this avalanche and ran back. Even if he knows this area, today is a totally different day.”
Galecki, like many avalanche experts, worries that riders of modern high-performance snowmobiles have increased their ability to reach backcountry avalanche terrain “by quantum leaps” without a comparable increase in their ability to assess the threats, many of which are unique to snowmobiling.
“The rule with high-marking is only one rider on the hill at a time,” Galecki said, noting that each machine and rider put more than 600 pounds of pressure on the snowpack. “If your buddy is stuck, let him get himself out. If you double up and go up there, you’re doubling the triggering weight and activity at that point.”
Ride one at a time
Surprisingly, about 33 percent of snowmobile fatalities occur when a sled is stuck, say avalanche experts Fredston and Fesler. About 34 percent involve more than one machine on the slope at the time of the avalanche.
If you learn nothing else, they say, remembering to ride one at a time and watching from a safe spot away from the base of a steep slope and refusing to go up the slope to help someone who has his sled stuck would cut the number of fatalities in half.
“There’s a lot to learn,” Galecki said. “Taking a class is a good idea.”
Staff writer Scott Willoughby can be reached at 303-954-1993 or swilloughby@denverpost.com.
U.S. avalanche fatalities by activity
Snowmobilers 117
Backcountry skiers/snowboarders 72
Lift skiers/’boarders – out of bounds 32
Miscellaneous recreation 31
Climbers 31
Lift skiers/’boarders – in area 3
Statistics from 1996-97 season through March 2007
Sources: Dale Atkins, Colorado Avalanche Information Center; Avalanche.org
