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Mountain News: Another high-marking death spurs questions

REVELSTOKE, B.C. - The snowmobiling sport of high-marking has, it can be safely assumed, left some other people feeling very low as the result of yet another fatality near Revelstoke.

REVELSTOKE, B.C. - The snowmobiling sport of high-marking has, it can be safely assumed, left some other people feeling very low as the result of yet another fatality near Revelstoke.

The Revelstoke Times Review reports that the latest death occurred last Saturday when a group of 10 snowmobilers watched from the base of Eagle Mountain as two snowmobilers motored up a steep slope to see how far they could get before gravity forced them back down. The two triggered an avalanche that was rated as a class 4 slide - large enough to destroy a large truck - on a scale of 5. The slide covered one of the onlookers.

The victim, Kelly Reitenbach, 30, of Calgary, was reported to have been a lineman in the Western Hockey League for seven years before he went to work in the oil industry.

This was the third fatality in just as many weeks near Revelstoke. The previous weekend two men died when a somewhat smaller avalanche was caused by high-marking. But, in that case, several hundred people had been in the area at an informal event called the Big Iron Shootout.

"Early reports from the slide site were grim," Aaron Orlando, of the Revelstoke Times review said of the first slide. "Hundreds were buried in a monster slide, many of them still under the snow. It was a ball of confusion... People feared the worst."

In the days after that avalanche, but before the most recent, Orlando said the most frequent question was what can be done to prevent these tragedies. It was, he noted, not a new question.

That very same question was asked a year ago by Canadian avalanche forecasters at the tail end of a season in which 19 snowmobilers died in avalanches in Canada.

In an essay originally published in summer 2009 titled "The year of Sledding Dangerously," John Kelly pointed out that all the snowmobilers were caught in essentially the same avalanche. By that, he meant that the base conditions which contributed to various avalanches were the same - and the dangers clearly understood, if somebody wanted to hear the messages.

Kelly admits to being flustered. "It's hard not to take every accident as a sign of failure, and it's hard to watch as the same avalanche accident scenario unfolds again and again," he wrote.

Virtually all the victims are men, so his agency targeted women: wives, partners and mothers. "... so how do you know if your man is playing safe out there? Sure, experience is important. But one thing we have come to know over the years - the avalanche doesn't know you are experienced."

The Canadian Avalanche Centre, he said, decided that the message needed to be targeted to at-risk sledders through the snowmobile advertisements that enticed them. "These guys have agreed to purchase expensive machinery marketed to them as the keys to the mountains," said Kelley. "Somehow we need to piggyback avalanche safety messaging onto that same marketing machine."

The International Snowmobile Manufacturers Association, he said, wrote back in June 2009 to report that the organization would not contribute funding to such advertising messages.

One of the injured sledders at the Big Iron Shootout on March 13 was Mike "Dupe" Duplisse, who was buried by snow but managed to dig himself out - a rare feat in avalanches when somebody is fully covered. But amid all the machines, backpacks and everything else flung down the slope with him, he suffered a nasty gash that required 20 staples.

Even so, in an interview with British Columbia's Salmon Arm Observer , Duplisse admitted he was lucky - and would change. He would still go sledding, he said, even if conditions were deemed dangerous. "But," he said, "I may not do some of the same things. I might put more care and thought into things."

 

UFO encounter recalled

BANFF, Alberta - George Kupilik had no fear in fleeing the Communists of Czechoslovakia when he emigrated to Canada in the early 1950s. But, in his first public report of the incident, he says he was absolutely scared by what he saw at Lake Minnewanka, in Banff National Park, during a visit in 1972.

In an interview with the Rocky Mountain Outlook , Kupilik explained that he and his wife were visiting the lake in what he calls an end-of-season farewell visit in September. Except for one other passing car, he believes the area was deserted. He loved the place because of its prodigious trout.

While looking out over the reservoir he saw a bright object, hovering over the mountains. His wife thought it a star and went into the camper. "I was 100 per cent sure it was a UFO," he said. And that was before it started moving.

What Kupilik says he saw certainly sounds extraterrestrial. There were considerable machinations in the sky for a period of time and then two yellowish disks approached. As they did, he was seized by two physical shocks. That surprised him, because he normally doesn't scare.

"I got so scared. I went to the truck - I didn't stop until I was in Calgary."

He told the story because he wants to see if anybody else - especially whoever may have been in that other vehicle - also saw it.

 

Suicide coverage defended

KETCHUM, Idaho - The Idaho Mountain Express recently was jabbed by several angry letter-writers who accused the newspaper of improperly reporting a local suicide. The individual killed himself after a face-off with police in the Ketchum and Sun Valley area.

"I don't know what demons forced him to take his own life, but I can state with certainty that he was a kind and gentle person and a good father," wrote one writer, who added: "Have you no compassion? Have you no decency? Do you get some perverse joy out of inflicting additional pain on an already devastated family?"

The Express responded that it reports suicides only when the event has a public component. In this case, sheriff's deputies said that the individual had shot his gun once in the direction of the officers and also discharged his firearm in their presence several other times.

"There are several reasons a newspaper would report on such an incident," explained the Express. "The most important reason is for the newspaper to perform its function of serving the public interest by presenting the news. When law enforcement officers are engaged in an incident in which gunshots are fired, it is the responsibility of the news media to tell people the details of what happened. To not do so could easily result in the spread of fear, misinformation and misunderstanding that comes with the rumor mill."

Part of the story reported by the Express was the speculation of the sheriff that the individual had intended to commit suicide by having police kill him.  That opinion was reflected in the story's headline: "Sheriff: Man sought 'suicide by police.'"

 

Idling cars targeted

JACKSON, Wyo. - You think one person can't change things? The Jackson Town Council appears ready to adopt a ban on truck and car idling of more than three minutes, similar to a law adopted a few months before in Ketchum, Idaho. And most of the dots seem to extend to Willie Neal, a popular boy who died shortly after graduating from the local high school last year.

Neal, who won eight all-state trophies for his Nordic skiing, had championed the need to rid the town of unnecessarily idling. Organizing a bake sale, he used the proceeds to distribute more than 1,000 bumper stickers and construction "No Idling" signs that a dozen businesses have installed. He later was killed while rollerskiing in Maine.

But the cause has been taken up by several organizations, including the Yellowstone-Teton Clear Air Coalition, at least two local doctors and a number of students.

"I think idling is gross, and I wish it never existed," wrote fourth-grader Marrakech Maxwell, in a letter published in the Jackson Hole News & Guide. "It is scientifically proven that idling is bad for breathing in and out."

Town councillors, as well as the police chief, said the ordinance should be a soft stick. In other words, they hope for education rather than aggressive enforcement.

The ordinance being reviewed would allow drivers to idle if stuck in traffic, when defrosting windows or performing "work for which the vehicles was designed."

 

Plastic bottles kiboshed

AVON, Colo. - Just a year ago, the Pines Lodge, a hotel located at Beaver Creek, gave 16,000 plastic water bottles to customers. The bottles contained water imported from Norway.

But that program has been scrapped. Instead, those staying at the hotel get local water, but run through an extra purifier, and delivered in glass bottles, reports the Vail Daily.

The hotel is owned and operated by Vail Resorts, which intends to curb the distribution of plastic battles at its 20 hotels in Colorado, California, and Wyoming. Through a program called the Vail Valley Partnership, the company hopes other hotels run with the same idea. "We hope people copy us," said Julie Klein, director of environmental affairs for Vail Resorts Hospitality.

"Ron Neville, manager of the Pines Lodge, told the Vail Daily that the old-fashioned idea of local water and glass bottles has been popular with both guests and employees.

 

Corduroy a lot like fresh concrete

WHITEFISH, Mont. - The conversation continues in Whitefish, where operators of the Big Mountain ski area have issued new regulations restricting uphillers to one designated corridor that can only be used during the daytime.

They said increasing numbers of uphillers were in danger of being hurt from winching operations as snow groomers worked on steep slopes. But they also said that uphillers, when skiing back down the slopes, created deep ruts in the fresh corduroy, because the snow had not yet had time to set up.

Writing in the Whitefish Pilot, snow groomer Mike Paulson says it's partly a matter of aesthetics. What if you were a concrete worker, and "had spent hours finishing your sidewalk or pad and came through with your dog and tracked it all up and let my dog crap all over your work. Would you be pleased?" he asks.

The uphillers can leave up to half-foot ruts when carving their turns. "This is a skiing/riding hazard the next morning after these 6-inch gouges have set up," he said.

 

Park City also hopes to entice Google

PARK CITY, Utah - Add Park City to the list of communities that are putting in an application to be a model in Google's roll-out Fiber for Communities program. Park City, in its bid, asserts that it is "capable of providing unprecedented exposure to this new technology from across the country, and the world."

Among ski towns, Aspen is also angling for a shot to get Google's beneficence of a fibre optic network with speeds 100 times faster than what is now commonly available.

Neither ski town, however, seems to have plans for self-promotion such as what was reported by the New York Times on Monday. The newspaper reported that the mayor of Duluth, Minn. had flung himself into the ice-ringed waters of Lake Superior, while the mayor of Sarasota, Fla. immersed himself in a tank filled with sharks, both feats intended to draw the attention to their Google bids.

 

New standard for trashcans

ASPEN, Colo. - Aspen has raised the bar on what will be required of trashcans this summer. The new requirement comes after another summer of bears grazing their way through Aspen, several of them invading homes.

The new law adopted by the city council requires wildlife-resistant garbage cans. In another change, the containers can be placed outside only between the hours of 6 a.m. and 7 p.m.

Aspen residents complained a great deal about the cost of the wildlife-resistant cans, which cost $100 to $300 each, reported the Aspen Times. City officials hope to get the cans in bulk, to bring down costs.

Vail, Snowmass Village and several other towns have taken similar steps during the last several years. Vail took the additional step of requiring wildlife-proof metal containers or enclosures for households that do not otherwise have access to a secured storage area.

Randy Hampton, a spokesman for the Colorado Division of Wildlife, said the state agency sees Aspen's requirement as a step in the right direction - but it isn't the total answer.

"Aspen, regardless of what they do, will have bears on the ground in town, because the bear habitat there is just prime," he said. The many berry bushes that are part of the native ecosystem, he said, provide the best habitat in Colorado.

But other things must also be done. The agency's wildlife biologists, he said, are attempting to better understand how bears use the area. They are also looking into whether more hunting needs to be allowed, to reduce the population. Hampton said the state agency is working to better communicate with specific groups, including second-home owners and those who do not read or understand English.

 

New restrictions on river

DURANGO, Colo. - Durango city officials have been considering new restrictions governing recreational use of the Animals River, which gushes through the community on the edge of the San Juan Mountains. Use of the river, says the Durango Telegraph, has been exploding.

The proposed measures take aim at the currently lightly regulated private boaters. Alcohol would be banned on the river and at put-ins and take-outs and also put a curfew on boating after 10 p.m. The current limit is midnight. As well, the law would require that all private boaters wear flotation devices.

The newspaper notes that Durango Fire and Rescue has responded in recent years to a growing number of stranded river users, few of whom have been wearing flotation devices or proper foot wear.