Questions: Christmas Eve Avalanche

read your local avy reports, they are very good at telling you what aspects to look out for. I don't know the number off hand, but I have ridden all over the northwest and have not ridden in a place that does not have an avy report. Get trained, it is well worth it, don't rely on what other people are saying, most of the people that comment are not trained like they should be. Just my 2c

My deepest sympathy to the family and freinds

These are very tragic deaths. We as snowmobilers need to get more educated about the facts of snow. With a few hours of good education, Reading the avy forecast for your area and reading the signs that mother nature sends to you, We could almost get the avy fatalies down to Zero.

We have an average of 30 avy fatalies in the U.S a year. These do not include our canadian brothers or Europeans. Almost 1/2 of these are snowmobilers. That means we lose an average of 15 sledders per year to avy deaths. This number does not include the few that live thru an avalanche.

Take a Avalanche awareness course

Here are a few rules to live by:

1. Check the local avy forecast Daily when riding
2. Most avalanches happen/ start on slopes of 25-45 degrees
3. Donot go thru or under avalanche prone areas
4. Most avalnaches happen when we have A. windblown snow, B. New snow and C. Warming temperatures. You put two or more of these factors together and the danger level rises very fast.
5. There are almost always safe routes to Use. Please use some common sense and some avy training and we will all live a long life.
I have 2 riding partners that lived by the rule that "It cant happen to me". They are both dead from separate avalanches.
Please look for the little signs that the avy danger is rising, then just go find some flatter ground to have some fun on.
This way, you can always ride another day.
Mick