B.C. winter backcountry travel boom feeds need to be Avy Savvy

Island Alpine Guides training winter sport adventurers how to play safe
By Madeline Dunnett, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter THE DISCOURSE
Are you planning on going backcountry skiing or snowboarding this winter? You’re not the only one.
There has been a huge increase in winter backcountry recreation since the COVID-19 pandemic began according to Jan Neuspiel, director of Island Alpine Guides, based in the Vancouver Island community of Cumberland.
“Like so many things in the outdoors, the pandemic was a big bump,” Neuspiel said.
Neuspiel has been guiding for more than three decades and began Island Alpine Guides with fellow Association of Canadian Mountain Guides certified guide Cliff Umpleby in 2006. Since then, the mountain school and guide service has provided Vancouver Islanders with courses such as avalanche training, mountain weather forecasting tutorials, ski mountaineering, multi-pitch climbing, rock rescue and more.
Despite Island Alpine Guides always working towards reducing the chances of mishaps, Neuspiel said that when the number of people getting into the backcountry increases, the chances of accidents also increase.
“We’re training more and more people in avalanche safety and in backcountry skills in general. And the rise in the number of people wanting to take courses is obviously accompanied by a rise in people actually going out and doing stuff,” Neuspiel said. “And the pure numbers would mean that there’s going to be more people getting into trouble when they go out there.”
With more people showing interest in travelling the backcountry in the winter, Neuspiel is offering tips on where and how to get started to ensure people have safe journeys.
For those who want to learn to backcountry ski or snowboard — which is often done out of bounds and involves skiing uphill and sliding down on backcountry skis or a splitboard — Neuspiel said the best place to start is an Avalanche Skills Training 1 course, or AST1.
These courses can also be useful for snowshoers and snowmobilers to increase their knowledge and safety.
In the 2013/2014 season, Island Alpine Guides had 200 students sign up for their Avalanche Skills Training courses, and in the 2022/2023 season there were 350 students who signed up, Neuspiel said.
The AST1 course educates people about how to assess risk and learn what avalanche terrain is and isn’t. With Island Alpine Guides, it takes place over two days — one classroom day and one field day.
The course also teaches skills such as understanding the snow pack, route planning and risk assessment. During the field day, students learn how to use their equipment and look at snow samples, different terrain and practice finding buried avalanche transceivers.
“Avalanche Canada has done a really good job of giving people the notion that the starting point is to take a basic entry level avalanche course,” Neuspiel said, adding that the AST1 is “a logical entry point, because before doing that a lot of people wouldn’t know what’s avalanche terrain and what isn’t avalanche terrain.”
Avalanche Canada is a non-profit organization that provides avalanche safety information, education, and forecasting for backcountry users in Canada.
In an interview with Lys Morton for Sun Peaks Independent News, Avalanche Canada executive director Gilles Valade said the organization aims to prevent a need for emergency response. In other words, it aims to equip anyone interacting with Canada’s mountains and backcountry with the tools to safely explore and recreate. This helps build a population that requires fewer rescue resources.
Avalanche Canada’s online map also contains ratings for different avalanche conditions in areas where ski touring is popular. Avalanche Canada added areas on Vancouver Island to its ratings and forecasts in the 2021-2022 winter season.
Neuspiel said in Canada, the AST1 course has become widely accepted as the entry point into understanding how to stay safe in the winter backcountry, but it’s “really only a starting point.”
“If people are going to really start to engage with avalanche terrain in a way other than just avoiding it, then it gets a little more complicated than that, and a mixture of gaining experience in the mountains and further higher level training would both be the appropriate path,” Neuspiel said.
There are other courses such as the AST2, which go into more details, but Neuspiel explained that having the required knowledge to traverse the backcountry is about much more than just taking the courses.
The bigger portion is gaining hands-on experience moving through terrain and making decisions in the backcountry while also learning what impact those decisions have.
There are online resources, too. Avalanche Canada has an online tutorial called Avy Savvy, which is an accessible place for people to learn more about assessing avalanche terrain.
Neuspiel recommended three different ways to gain experience after taking an avalanche course: going on trips with similarly inexperienced peers, more experienced peers and/or with professional guides. Each option, he said, has pros and cons.
Going on trips with similarly inexperienced peers can help new winter backcountry explorers learn to contribute to decision-making equally, and gain experience making choices in the backcountry. The disadvantage to this, he said, is that because everyone is inexperienced, this means they will be making conservative terrain choices to maintain a reasonable risk margin, so there is a limit to where they can go.
The next option is doing trips in the backcountry with more experienced peers.
“In this case, the advantage is that maybe you’d be willing to undertake things .125that are.375 a little bit more risky than what a totally inexperienced group might, which would make trips more interesting.”
The other advantage of going on those trips would be the ability to learn from more experienced peers. But Neuspiel also warns that amateur leaders can overestimate their own abilities, and that accident statistics back this up.
“I really caution people that even if you’re really inexperienced on trips like that, don’t hesitate to speak your mind and to hold your ground in terms of your own risk tolerances,” he said.
The third option is going on trips with professionals. This gives newcomers a chance to learn from certified guides who are experienced and up-to-date with international standards due to continuing professional development they must participate in.
“If you have big objectives in mind that you don’t really have the skill level to make the judgements as to whether it’s the right time to do them or not, a guide can be really helpful there. So you can achieve some goals in the mountains that way,” Neuspiel said.
The downside, however, is that going on trips with experienced guides costs money.
At the end of the day, Neuspiel said the most important thing to do is get out there and gain experience.
“You can take more courses if you want, but it’s not going to replace going out.”
Backcountry skiers, snowboarders and snowshoers are going to have to put some money down to get out there, but there are things to do to keep the costs low if you’re on a budget.
“The first one on the gear is to buy used. Blue Toque Sports in Courtenay is a great example of a place to buy used. You can get some great deals there,” Neuspiel said.
He said gear swaps online are good too, and Facebook groups such as Vancouver Island Ski Touring Society and Vancouver Island Climbing and Mountaineering are other options where many people will sell their old gear for a reduced price.
Club trips, such as the ones offered by the Alpine Club of Canada’s Vancouver Island section, are another good place to start as long as backcountry recreationists are taking those cautionary steps Neuspiel touched on.
Neuspiel suggests finding like-minded friends who are in a similar stage in their learning to pitch in together to hire a guide.
“Another thing to remember is that when you go backcountry skiing, you’re not having to buy lift passes, so you’re saving some money there,” Neuspiel said.
Neuspiel himself has been caught in avalanches before.
“I’ve never been fully buried but I’ve been caught in avalanches four times, and I’ve been up to my neck once,” he said.
But he said he views those moments as learning experiences.
“As I said to my kid all the time when he was growing up when he’d say, `Oh, Dad, I blew it. I got it wrong. I made a mistake.’ My answer was always, `dude, it’s not a mistake if you learn from it, it’s a learning opportunity,”’ Neuspiel said.
“The risks associated with backcountry travel in the winter are real. Having said that, it’s also a truly manageable risk and with a systematic approach to your learning and your decision making, you can go a long way.”

B.C. winter backcountry travel boom feeds need to be Avy Savvy

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