The BC interior has now had 3 significant avalanches in the better part of a week. The first two were caused by a snowmobile contest activity known as "high marking", where individuals attempt to leave the highest altitude trail on a given mountain. This is an incredibly high risk activity, and the search and rescue bill was over a million dollars. The third avalanche was caused by a helicopter ski group.
Last week, the day after the Big Iron Shootout avalanche, I was watching video clips of "high marking" and blogged about the insanity of the activity. That post received about 2000 hits through Google searches, and I was on the receiving end of some fury by the snowmobiling community. I had to clarify that my condemnation of the Big Iron Shootout had nothing to do with standard back country recreational snowmobiling, but rather speeding them up the side of a steep snow packed mountain amid an extreme avalanche warning. Now here we are with a million dollar bill for search and rescue, and who pays for it? The people who participate in the high risk activity, or the taxpayers who watch these stunts on the evening news?
I would also like to correct myself from my original "Big Iron Shootout" post. I was under the impression that it was a race, but the winner is not first to the top or bottom, it highest tread marks. Though the participants require a significant amount of velocity to reach the highest altitudes.
Where did you pull that figure of a million dollar bill for the search and rescue from?
ReplyDeleteIt was on the local news broadcast, either CTV or CBC. They said the cost of the first two was at a million dollars for search and rescue, and yesterday's most recent avalanche is already at $50,000.
ReplyDeleteThank-you; pity we have to pay for their stupidity.
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