The legislation would attempt to prevent tragedies such as the one near Revelstoke on March 13, when two Alberta men died in an avalanche believed to have been triggered [...]]]> Snowmobilers who endanger the lives of others may see their sleds seized by authorities, under legislation proposed by B.C. Tourism Minister Kevin Krueger.

The legislation would attempt to prevent tragedies such as the one near Revelstoke on March 13, when two Alberta men died in an avalanche believed to have been triggered by an activity called high-marking.

In high-marking, snowmobilers compete to get farthest up a steep slope, leaving behind track marks in the snow.

“I think that this extremely risk behaviour … especially if it’s done in an area where other people are put at risk, should be the target of severe sanctions,” Krueger said in Victoria on Monday.

The March slide could easily have taken the lives of the 200 people watching the high-marking event near Revelstoke, he said.

The legislation targeting snowmobilers may be similar to a law that lets authorities seize property obtained through crime, he said.

Kurtis Reynolds of Strathmore and Shay Snortland of Lacombe, both 33, were killed and three other people were seriously injured in the avalanche.

The RCMP announced April 29 that no charges would be laid in connection with the slide.

The comments from Tourism Minister Kevin Krueger come after another deadly season in B.C.’s mountains, which saw three men killed in avalanches triggered by high-marking — a practice [...]]]> The B.C. government is pledging to create legislation specifically targeting problem snowmobilers who put themselves and others at risk in the province’s backcountry.

The comments from Tourism Minister Kevin Krueger come after another deadly season in B.C.’s mountains, which saw three men killed in avalanches triggered by high-marking — a practice where snowmobilers drive their machines up slopes as far as possible.

Krueger said he is working with a committee of cabinet ministers to create new regulations that would deal with the small and specific group of people.

“They endanger not just themselves, which is bad enough, but those with them and others enjoying the backcountry,” he said.

High-marking is said to have triggered the avalanches that killed Shay Snortland and Kurtis Reynolds on March 13 and, days later, Kelly Reitenbach — three of 12 who died in snow slides in Canada’s backcountry during the 2009-10 winter season.

The slide that killed Snortland and Reynolds at Boulder Mountain in southeastern B.C. also sent snow tumbling onto the crowd below, enveloping as many as 70 people and injuring dozens.

Krueger would like to see legislation that would allow officials to seize and sell the snowmobiles of those who put others at risk through activities such as high marking but, he said, the proposal has not been approved yet.

“Anything is on the table that will specifically help us with those who put others at risk,” he said.

He added the province does not want to implement any regulations that would burden the majority of the population who enjoys the backcountry.

Jimmy Alashoak was last seen Dec. 14, when he left by snowmobile to join his father at a hunting camp about 80 kilometres away from the northern [...]]]>

Snowmobilers in Puvirnituq, Que., have found a snowmobile that’s believed to have belonged to an 18-year-old boy who went missing more than four months ago.

Jimmy Alashoak was last seen Dec. 14, when he left by snowmobile to join his father at a hunting camp about 80 kilometres away from the northern Quebec Inuit village.

A blizzard hit while Alashoak was in transit and he was never seen again, despite two weeks of extensive air and ground searches.

This week, members of a snowmobile expedition to a mining camp discovered a sled about 60 kilometres northeast of Puvirnituq. They then found a snowmobile a short distance from the sled.

Puvirnituq mayor Aisara Kenuayuaq told CBC News Thursday that the equipment is definitely Alashoak’s, but the teen has not been found.

Kenuayuaq said the snow has been unusually deep this year. Another search will take place once the snow melts, he said.

With a population of about 1,450, Puvirnituq is located along the eastern shore of Hudson Bay, 1,630 kilometres northwest of Montreal.

The money was given out in a series of installments to the club, which maintains their snowmobile trail [...]]]> Snowmobilers in North Eastman will benefit from better and safer trails next year, after the Victoria Beach Snowdrifters Club received the final installment of a $16,200 federal cash injection for snowmobile trail maintenance.

The money was given out in a series of installments to the club, which maintains their snowmobile trail system of 225 kilometres from Victoria Beach to Hecla Island on Lake Winnipeg’s west side, and from Belair forest to Powerview-Pine Falls on the lake’s east side. The funding came from the National Trails Coalition, an organization made up of three other non-profit snowmobile and off-roading organizations.

According to Victoria Beach Snowdrifters’ president Chris Aldridge, the funding was used to make a number of improvements to the club’s trail system – flattening bumpy areas, smoothing out curves and cutting back some of the growth that tends to take over the trails after several years.

“We do some maintenance every year to some degree, but that’s usually just brush work, where we clear branches that fall, but this year we did a lot of levelling, and widening and grading and stuff like that,” said Aldridge.

He added that the work to improve the trails was something the club had been wanting to do but could never find the funding to make as much headway with the project as the grant has allowed them to.

“We got the money to do it all in one shot. It means safer trails, which is a big thing, and smoother trails – more enjoyable trails,” he said. “This is work that we wanted to do, but it would have taken us many more years to do it without the money from this grant.”

According to Aldridge, not only did the $16,200 allow for better trail maintenance, it also freed up funds for the club to undertake other projects. Ordinarily, the club is funded by the group Snoman – an umbrella group which funds all snowmobile clubs in the province – who funds clubs based on the number of kilometres of trails they groom, leaving little financial wiggle room.

“This money helps us free up money to build a groomer shelter, to store our trail groomer and other equipment,” he said. “Currently we have to lease a spot in another building, which isn’t the best way to do this.”

Aldridge, who is wrapping up his first year as club president, added that while the grant went a long way to helping the club do work on the trails, the club won’t be resting on its laurels for the next season, and is already at work making sure the trails will be in good shape when the snow falls again.

“Planning for this goes all year, because you’ve got to get ready for the next season,” he said. “Repairing your groomer, and doing maintenance and watching for trees coming down and getting out there to clean that up. It’s a lot of work to get this kind of stuff done.”

What was supposed to be a weeklong spring snowmobiling trip in the Bugaboos turned deadly for a Crossfield man.

Mark Daniels, 41, set out Friday with a group of three friends for adventure in the southeast corner of British Columbia during considerable avalanche conditions.

On Monday, Daniels was highmarking, triggering a snow [...]]]>

Provincial police officers recovered the body of Lucien Dubeault, 48, on Sunday from Upper Jobrin Lake.

Police say the Cochrane, Ont., man was among a party of three who had been fishing [...]]]> LONGLAC, Ont. — A northern Ontario man is dead after the snowmobile on which he was a passenger plunged through thin ice.

Provincial police officers recovered the body of Lucien Dubeault, 48, on Sunday from Upper Jobrin Lake.

Police say the Cochrane, Ont., man was among a party of three who had been fishing on the lake 40 km north of Longlac, Ont.

The driver of the snowmobile was also pulled from the water and was eventually airlifted to hospital in Thunder Bay. His condition isn’t known.

Oakley resident Kevin Robert Rudnicki died in a single-vehicle crash at about 12:40 a.m. on Thursday. He was 43 years old.

The cause of the crash which occurred near Utica [...]]]> MARKLEEVILLE, Calif.—A Bay Area man has been identified by the Alpine County Sheriff’s Department as the victim of a fatal snowmobile accident.

Oakley resident Kevin Robert Rudnicki died in a single-vehicle crash at about 12:40 a.m. on Thursday. He was 43 years old.

The cause of the crash which occurred near Utica Reservoir in Alpine County is under investigation, the sheriff’s department says.

Authorities say Rudnicki was wearing the proper safety gear but was ejected from the snowmobile.

“It’s certainly a small miracle that we didn’t end up with a complete, massive group buried under the snow,” said Cpl. Dan Moskaluk [...]]]> Reporting from Seattle — At least two people were killed and 30 injured after a massive avalanche smothered a high-risk snowmobile rally in southern British Columbia, police said Sunday.

“It’s certainly a small miracle that we didn’t end up with a complete, massive group buried under the snow,” said Cpl. Dan Moskaluk of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Most of the estimated 200 spectators and participants were accounted for, he said.

An avalanche 150 yards wide and as much as 1.6 miles long thundered down a steep snow bowl at the Canadian Rocky Mountain resort of Revelstoke, where competitors were attempting to scale the treacherous slope on high-powered snow machines during an unsanctioned rally Saturday afternoon.

“From the information that we have, it was triggered by the snowmobilers,” said Greg Johnson, forecaster at the Canadian Avalanche Center in Revelstoke. “It swept over lots and lots of snowmobiles, trees. It is a very large avalanche, and there is debris everywhere.”

Canadian officials in recent years have been confronted with an increasing number of avalanche deaths, often among snowmobilers who authorities say are using ever-more-powerful machines to ascend steep slopes, often in unstable snow conditions.

There have been four avalanche fatalities this season. Last year 26 died, prompting the center to warn, in a report called “The Year of Sledding Dangerously,” that snowmobilers had been largely ignoring warnings to avoid steep, unstable slopes in the mountainous area.

The report said officials had had little success in getting snowmobilers to heed their warnings so they had begun directing them to wives and mothers. Accident investigations had demonstrated “some stunningly aggressive terrain choices,” it said. “It’s hard to watch as the same avalanche accident scenario unfolds again and again.”

Unusual weather conditions this month were “unprecedented,” prompting the issuance of special avalanche warnings each weekend for several weeks. “We’ve never done that before,” Johnson said.

A relatively dry, low-snowfall winter allowed a number of weaknesses to form in the upper portion of the snowpack, he said. That was followed by a strong storm Thursday and Friday. “The snow that fell overloaded those weaknesses in the snowpack and created a generally unstable situation,” he said.

The man’s body was found by provincial police divers Friday, one day after police said the groomer went though the ice on Lac Blanc, [...]]]>

Police have recovered the body of a 67-year-old man after his snowmobile trail groomer crashed through the ice of a lake in the Lanaudière region of Quebec Thursday afternoon.

The man’s body was found by provincial police divers Friday, one day after police said the groomer went though the ice on Lac Blanc, in Saint-Damien near Berthierville.

A 47-year-old woman who was also inside the vehicle was pulled from the water after a resident in the area alerted emergency officials Thursday afternoon.

The woman, who spent more than 40 minutes in the water, died later in hospital.

Police said it seems the two were out for a drive on the ice.

“There are no more snow mobile trails in that area [at this time of year],” said provincial police Sgt. Martine Isabelle. “There is still some snow … [and] ice, but clearly it isn’t very solid.”

The groomer was several hundred metres away from the shoreline when the ice gave way, said police.