Avalanche danger ratings were listed as “high” last month across several coastal mountain backcountry regions including the North Shore, Whistler and Vancouver Island, highlighting the timeliness of a new three-year snowmobiler avalanche safety program involving SFU researchers.

The Mountain Snowmobile Education Project, which the Canadian Avalanche Centre (CAC) is funding with a $679,000 federal grant, aims to survey BC’s mountain snowmobiling community and provide information on the risks of slides to help reduce snowmobiler avalanche deaths.

During the 2008–09 winter season, BC recorded 24 avalanche deaths, of which 19 were backcountry snowmobilers and five were skiers or snowboarders.

Pascal Haegeli, Wolfgang Haider and grad student Luke Strong-Cvetich with SFU’s School of Resource and Environmental Management (REM) are conducting the initial, social-science arm of the project.

“The goal of our study is to learn as much as we can about the snowmobile community and its perspective on avalanches,” says Haegeli, one of Canada’s leading avalanche experts.

“We are interested to know more about how snowmobile riders perceive avalanche risk, where they get avalanche information from, and how it affects their decision-making when riding.

“We also want to better understand the various types of snowmobile riders and who is most at risk for being involved in an avalanche incident.”

The SFU researchers are conducting surveys with snowmobile clubs and riders at nine popular backcountry staging areas in Fernie, Golden, Revelstoke, Sicamous and Valemount.

They are also developing an online survey that will be promoted through the clubs and snowmobile community websites.

“The online format will allow us to ask more in-depth questions and to put participants into actual decision-making situations,” says Haegeli.

“Our interest is not to tell riders what they can ride and what not. But we would like to ensure that riders are fully aware of what they are getting into so they can make informed choices.”