At the height of Glacier National Park's winter season, with a sealed-off restricted zone now available again to the public but various visitor-triggered avalanches happening even just this week, a Parks Canada official is reinforcing awareness for both the risk and importance of this federal land.
Following fresh snowfall and a weekend of rain, Glacier reopened a chunk of its West Rogers Winter Restricted Area Wednesday morning, Feb. 26.
The area, closed Feb. 13 and located on the east side of Highway 1 near the Rogers Pass Discovery Centre and along the slopes of Mt. Macdonald and Avalanche Mountain, lies adjacent to the West Rogers Winter Prohibited Area where human tracks were discovered two weeks ago.
"To ensure no one else inadvertently followed those tracks, we needed to close the entire area," Shelley Bird, the park's external relations and visitor experience manager, told Black Press Media.
In this 1,350-square-kilometre park, rigged with 135 avalanche paths and lined with 44 kms of twisting highway, Bird explained that the priority is ensuring trans-national traffic can flow both ways all winter, unobstructed and without peril. This includes minimizing the risk of visitors accessing the park triggering an avalanche that could block off the road.
"The majority of backcountry users are compliant with the winter permit system, otherwise it wouldn't exist," Bird said, pointing out that winter restricted areas are opened based on highway safety, not on avalanche conditions and backcountry safety.
Since 1995, the ability to obtain a free permit and parking pass through Parks Canada has allowed thousands of annual users to enjoy Glacier's mountainous terrain during even its harshest winter months.
Still, the park's avalanche management has more than 270 pre-set targets for howitzer, helicopter and remotely-triggered blasting, meaning visitors need to diligently stick to unrestricted and open restricted areas to avoid wandering into the crosshairs. This compatibility between avalanche control and park users is essential, allowing Parks Canada to bring down smaller avalanches before they become larger, road-ruining risks.
"If they wait too long, sometimes the avalanches won't slide," Bird said, adding that helicopter bombing in Glacier can continue into May.
Outside national park lines, recent human-triggered avalanche fatalities amid unstable backcountry conditions have rocked the region.
Last Sunday, Feb. 23, a snowmobiler died in a 40-metre-wide avalanche in the mountains west of Radium Hot Springs. A week prior on Feb. 17, a backcountry skier died in a kilometre-long wind slab avalanche down Kapristo Mountain, south of Golden.
"These kinds of incidents can hit close to home for those of us living in the mountains," Bird noted.
Even on Tuesday, Feb. 25, skiers triggered several avalanches in Glacier, according to her. And since Nov. 1, 2024, the park's visitor safety team has received 46 calls for assistance, of which 32 were avalanche-related and 11 required rescue. While rescues are often prompted in Glacier by injuries in low-snow conditions, Bird cautions that "rescues take time in the mountains and there's always the chance that you have to spend a night."
For example, a skier shared her gratitude for Parks Canada in January after badly tweaking her knee on an outing with companions around Glacier's Christiana trees. A park rescue team was summoned but without enough time to extract the group before dark, so an overnight kit with sleeping bags and a tent was delivered by helicopter as a temporary measure until skiers and a sled could lead the injured woman and her friends out the following afternoon.
"Enough daylight to drop her supplies, but not to get her out," Bird emphasized.
Parts of Glacier where the visitor safety team tends to see more problems arise include the Asulkan Valley, Connaught Creek and areas accessed from the NRC Gully parking lot. Bird attributes this to the two backcountry cabins in these reaches drawing extra traffic, and the juxtaposition of restricted and unrestricted areas that park users can easily move between.
Overall, she advises visitors to make key choices about their safety that reflect the skills and experience of themselves and their group.
"We don't encourage a lot of recreation in Glacier in winter unless you know what you're doing," Bird said. "It's about managing your risk and being as prepared in your approach."
Park visitors who become involved in or witnesses to an avalanche, even one not impacting humans, are encouraged to submit a Mountain Information Network (MIN) report online via Avalanche Canada at avalanche.ca/mountain-information-network.
Glacier's winter permit system hit a milestone this week by surpassing 6,500 annual passes, the total from the 2023-24 season, with still another couple months to go before the end of the avalanche control season. However, Bird mentioned that, while the winter permit system has waived costs for 30 years, "at some point there will be a fee introduced for it" in the next year or two.
"It does take a significant amount of work and time and investment," she said.
Until then, anyone may continue to obtain their free permit and parking pass gratis by taking Parks Canada's hour-long online quiz.
To learn more about winter access to Glacier National Park, and to view the interactive map, visit parks.canada.ca/pn-np/bc/glacier/visit/hiver-winter/ski.
