Here are some ways to start rounding out your backcountry skills:

• Ski seasonal roads. If you’re new to the sport or don’t have any snow-science education, seek out low-angle slopes away from avalanche danger and side-country options. The Summit Road at Mount Spokane State Park is a good place to start.
• Buy a beacon and practice. Even if you’re not heading into avalanche-prone terrain, it’s a good idea to build good habits.
• Read safety information and watch avy education videos online. The Northwest Avalanche Center has online education modules. The Idaho Panhandle Avalanche Center also has tutorials on topics like how to read an avalanche forecast.

Find more Out There Venture’ mountain safety stories.

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Four skiers survived the avalanche, including Rebecca Hurlen-Patano, who was able to extricate herself about being buried in two slides. She spent the past year recovering physically, mentally, and emotionally from the traumatic experience, and plans on attending the memorial. Countless first responders and ski patrollers from around the region assisted Silver Mountain ski patrollers during the initial search and rescue and subsequent search and recovery days. (Learn more: “Avy Dogs and Risk Assessment” – March 2020 issue.)

Hurlen-Patano, who has been a skier for 55 years and a Silver Mountain passholder for about 15 years, along with her fellow survivors — as well as Idaho Panhandle Avalanche Center Director Jeff Thompson (and avy dog handler) and the parents of avalanche victim Molly Hubbard — wants January 7^th to be an annual day to bring awareness to mountain safety.

Mountain Safety & Awareness

Last fall, Hurlen-Patano met John and Mary Hubbard, Molly’s parents, after encouraging them to visit Coeur d’Alene. She hosted a dinner at her home for the Hubbards to meet all the survivors as well as Thompson. “We started a relationship and have tried our best to maintain that to help process this trauma,” says Hurlen-Patano. “It’s difficult to survive an incident where you were in close proximity to those who died. Out of this horrific event, we are trying to create something good — trying to create an awareness of mountain safety, particularly at resorts.

“This idea of having something horrible turn into something positive is the only channel of energy that would be healthy for me. John and Mary feel the same way. Molly, their daughter, was a pay-it-forward kind of gal, so we had this concept of, let’s get everyone together and bring awareness to [in-bounds] avalanches.”

According to a statement shared by the group of survivors, “It is everyone’s hope to preserve [the victims’] memory and to raise awareness of avalanche safety. Going forward, we hope to use this day each year to raise money for Idaho Panhandle Avalanche Center (IPAC) and avalanche education to continue advocacy for avalanche safety protocols.”

They encourage people to “make a donation to your local avalanche forecast center or search and rescue organization” and to donate to Idaho Panhandle Avalanche Center (IPAC) if you live or ski in the Inland Northwest. (IPAC has been impacted by U.S. Forest Service budget cuts, as was reported in a news story from the September-October 2020 double issue.)

“I know we can’t ring bells for everyone who has been lost in an avalanche. But it’s nice that this one is being honored,” she says. “Ring a bell and be glad you’re alive. And then check your backcountry gear, make sure you have avy gear [and commit to taking it with you when you ski or ride].”

Participants from around the western United States will take part at their home mountains, including at Mt. Baker near Bellingham, Wash.; Snowbowl near Missoula, Montana; and at resorts in Utah, according to Hurlen-Patano.

“Let’s get healed. Let’s create an environment where we can be better educated,” says Hurlen-Patano. “We are behind the times [in the Inland Northwest] when it comes to our mountain awareness. We’re going to have a lot of people come to our area to ski. And we’re going to have more incidents of people caught in avalanches, on the frontside and backside. So let’s make sure people know what they’re doing.”

Here are the memorial events planned for the one-year anniversary on Thursday, January 7, 2021.

Silver Avalanche Memorial

Anyone, any place, on any mountain can join in a moment of silence at 11:04 a.m. (Pacific Standard Time). Then at 11:05 a.m., ring a bell, click your ski poles, or give a holler to the mountains.

Remembrance & Dedication Ceremony at Silver Mountain Resort

• 9:30 a.m.: Dedication Ceremony of memorial windchimes at the Mountain House.
• 11:04 a.m.: Lifts at Silver Mountain will be stopped for a moment of silence.
• 11:05 a.m.: Ringing of bells and chimes.
• 12:00 p.m.: Gathering in Moguls Lounge, located inside the Mountain House, to raise a pint in remembrance for those who passed and those who are living.

The memorial windchimes were handcrafted by Paul Hoskinson, a friend of avalanche victim Carl Humphreys, and will be installed along the Wardner Peak Traverse. Guests are encouraged to bring bells or use a bell-sounds smartphone app to help mark the end of silence.

Review our coverage of the Silver Mountain avalanche. Learn more about mountain awareness and avalanche safety.

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Sandpoint, Idaho 

As most people know, avalanche fatalities in the U. S. have increased dramatically over the past 30 years. But what many people may not know is that most all avalanche accidents in this country occur on public land administered by the United States Forest Service (USFS) and that avalanches kill more people in our National Forests than any other natural hazard.  

The explosion in the number of people venturing into the backcountry to enjoy skiing, snowboarding, or motorized over-snow travel (snowmobiles and snowbikes) has put more and more people at risk of encountering avalanches while pursuing their winter recreational activities. This is corroborated by statistics that show the overwhelming majority of avalanche fatalities in recent years have been snowmobilers and backcountry skiers. 

In an attempt to address the growing number of avalanche accidents occurring on public land, the USFS established regional avalanche centers to provide avalanche forecasts for backcountry users, beginning with the Colorado Avalanche Warning Program in the 1970s.

Today, there are 14 avalanche centers in the U.S., most all of them located in western states. Idaho has three, the Sawtooth, Payette, and Idaho Panhandle Avalanche Center, or IPAC, headquartered in Sandpoint. 

History of IPAC

Idaho Panhandle Avalanche Center began in the mid-1980s, when two local USFS hydrologists decided to issue notifications to the public when they felt weather conditions were contributing to a widespread avalanche hazard. These announcements were accompanied by intermittent updates of general avalanche conditions through the use of a telephone hotline. In the mid-90s, another USFS hydrologist, Kevin Davis, joined the team and began submitting field data and observations from his backcountry travels in the mountains in and around the Idaho Panhandle. Davis’ contributions led to the development of regular backcountry avalanche forecasts, issued through a USFS website on a weekly basis.  

During the next decade or so, IPAC’s popularity continued to grow, and it soon became obvious that in order to keep up with the ever-expanding backcountry community, additional funding was needed. Davis, along with Gary Quinn and Scott Rulander founded Friends of the Idaho Panhandle Avalanche Center, a non-profit organization.

This Friends group’s aims to raise money, that, combined with USFS funding, would keep the center up-and-running. More funds would also provide avalanche education opportunities for the increasing number of winter backcountry enthusiasts. With additional resources provided by the Friends group, IPAC was able to improve its website and notification capabilities and expand its forecast area. 

In 2016, Jeff Thompson was hired as Idaho Panhandle Avalanche Center director, and the program continued to evolve. IPAC now issues two forecasts each week for the Selkirk and Cabinet Ranges, and two forecasts for the Silver Valley/St. Regis Basin as well. Along with more frequent and detailed forecasts, IPAC also offers a variety of avalanche courses for backcountry skiers, snowboarders, snowmobilers, and snowbikers, from late fall to early spring.

In 2018, the Kootenai National Forest in northwestern Montana partnered with IPAC to develop a forecast for the mountains of northwestern Montana. 

Current Status of IPAC

Today, IPAC is in trouble. USFS budgets in many areas are diminishing. Avalanche centers are under increasing financial stress, with IPAC suffering more than most.

Compared to the Sawtooth Avalanche Center, where 40% of the annual budget comes from the USFS, and the Payette Avalanche Center that is funded 100% by the USFS, IPAC receives less than one-third of its budget from the Forest Service, with the rest coming from the friends group.

In addition, the job of director for both the Sawtooth and Payette centers is a USFS position. Not so with IPAC, where the director’s salary comes from the Friends of IPAC group. To make matters worse, the $21,500 the Sandpoint Ranger District provided IPAC this year may not be available in 2021.  

If things continue in this direction, it’s likely that next year there will only be three IPAC forecasters — all USFS employees, working under fairly restrictive time constraints. Additionally, there will be one forecaster from the Kootenai Forest. Altogether, these four will be responsible producing backcountry avalanche forecasts covering an area of roughly 2,500 square miles. Those forecasts may also be reduced to one per week. This will be a big step backwards.   

On the national level, the USFS is committed to sustaining regional avalanche centers, but the day-to-day, year-to-year operations of those centers is left up to forest supervisors and district rangers. For some of them, avalanche centers are not a high priority.  

If any of the USFS employees who currently make up the forecast staff should be reassigned elsewhere, the center would be in dire straits and likely have to curtail regular operations. To a rapidly growing backcountry community, this would be a significant loss.

But the avalanches won’t care, not one bit. They will continue to occur wherever and whenever they choose, with no regard whatsoever as to whom they might be affecting.

Without regular IPAC forecasts to help us make sound, informed decisions, and to help us safely maneuver in and around avalanche terrain, the North Idaho backcountry is likely to become a little more dangerous, and that’s something that none of us need.

Liam Fitzgerald is a retiring board member of Friends of Idaho Panhandle Avalanche Center.

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Schweitzer formalized its avalanche dog program in winter 2016-17. “Finding good handlers—someone who has the capability to do this job and has the education—is harder than finding good dogs,” says Thompson, who has 23 years of patrol experience. Annie, a Labrador retriever, was only eight weeks old when Thompson got her. She is the third search and rescue dog he has trained. At that time, he was still living in Colorado and patrolling at Beaver Creek Resort. He moved to North Idaho when Annie was two.

Avy dogs are “great mascots” for avalanche education and connecting and engaging with the skiing public, says Thompson. Dogs train year-round, and not only learn search and rescue skills, but also how to ride a chairlift, a snowmobile, and in a helicopter. Annie and her fellow Schweitzer avy patrol dogs, Abbey and Murphy, are sponsored by Dr. Tim’s, a pet food company, and by North Idaho Animal Hospital for vet care.

After hearing the news about the in-bounds slide at Silver, Thompson gathered his avalanche safety equipment and Annie and Abbey. “We weren’t there on the hasty search. We arrived about 2 hours in,” says Thompson. “The dogs were critical in finding skiers that first day. If people are buried without a beacon, an avy dog is the next best [way to find them].” Annie alerted searchers to the location of one of the deceased skiers.

The following day, Wednesday, Jan. 8, the search resumed when another skier was reported missing. Silver Mountain Ski Patrollers, Thompson and Schweitzer’s avy dogs, and patrollers from all the local mountains converged at the avalanche site. “Any time an unprecedented event like that happens, the community works together,” says Thompson. After he was able to investigate the avalanche, his preliminary report for IPAC detailed the avalanche as 300-feet wide and traveling more than 900 feet down the 16-to-1 ski run, having been releasing about 90 feet from the summit of Wardner Peak.

In-bounds avalanches happen at many ski areas, most occurring in a “controlled environment with explosives and mitigation techniques” conducted by professional ski patrollers, explains Thompson who is also a certified National Ski Patrol Level 1 avalanche instructor. “Our avalanche center’s niche is the recreation side, to educate and forecast and to give the public information and tools,” he says. The center provides online resources and in-person classes tailored to backcountry users, snowmobilers, and skiers. 

“We never would have heard of the Silver one if it had been released during patrol’s avalanche mitigation work that day…. For whatever reason, something different happened that day.” Despite the tragedy, Thompson isn’t alarmed. “When you start to do the numbers of how many people ski and how often this happens…99.9 percent of the time it’s safe,” he says. “The reality is Mother Nature has a mind of her own, and as much as we try to manipulate the snow, it’s not enough.”

He continues, “I think it’s important for people to understand that the possibility [of avalanche] is there. Does that mean you have to wear your avalanche beacon in-bounds? No. Should you? Why not— [it] does no good sitting in your car,” he says. 

“Avalanche beacons, shovels, and probes are great when you make a bad decision. But the best thing is to not make a bad decision,” he says, particularly with backcountry ski terrain. “The one thing that comes to mind is slope angle—if you avoid avalanche terrain, you’re not going to get caught in an avalanche. You can ski all day and make powder turns and not be on avalanche terrain. But if you’re going on the avalanche terrain, take the tools with you. Be able to identify if you’re in a spot that could avalanche.”

Angle awareness also applies to in-bounds skiing. “Usually your average blue run is tip-toeing into avalanche range. So that puts it into perspective. It doesn’t mean that there is a need to have heightened awareness. [Patrollers and mountain staff] manipulate the snow a ton, with snowcats and avalanche mitigation,” says Thompson.

At Schweitzer Mountain “half of the runs are steep enough to have a slide, but most don’t have a history of slides,” he says. Patrollers begin avalanche mitigation work early each morning and continuously monitor snow conditions throughout the day, “keeping our finger on the pulse of our snowpack,” explains Thompson. 

The public can have confidence in professional ski patrollers who undergo avalanche training, he says. “Ski patrol at Schweitzer and Silver take their job very seriously and open the terrain when it is safe.” Stay in touch with Schweitzer’s patrol dogs on their Instagram profile @schweitzer.avydogs.

[Photos courtesy of Schweitzer Mountain Resort]

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