Fernie wake up callLast year a couple of friends visited us from the UK. On their first night I told them not to worry if in the morning they got woken up by explosions.
It would just be the avalanche control bombing on Fernie Alpine Resort, a few of kilometres from our house, I explained.
“Yeah – right!” they said, clearly thinking I was playing a prank on them. The next morning, as the windows shook from the bombs being thrown from a helicopter 1,200 metres above our house, they appeared for breakfast and sheepishly admitted that maybe I had been telling the truth.
Fernie's mountain alarm clock is the sign it's a good day to drag yourself out of bed and up the mountain for first lift.
Our ski area is blessed with huge amounts of powder each year that make for epic skiing or boarding in the mountain's five bowls, but there are also large cliff faces at the top of each bowl that pose a nasty avalanche threat – you don't want to be underneath when one of those faces slides.
So after most snowfalls, the ski patrol are up there, either heli bombing or setting bombs on foot.
If you're ever up early the day after a big dump, keep a look out for the helicopter over the mountain – you can even see it from the main street of Fernie, if you look carefully.
The helicopter will hover for a few minutes as the explosives are dropped, usually four or five in one place.
Then it will zoom out of the way, and two minutes later you'll see a plume of snow going up, then a little while later (depending how far away you are) you hear the sound and may feel a shock wave in the air. Only then do you see the flood of snow rushing down the mountain.
If you're still in town at that point, it's time to grab your skis and head up to the mountain for some crazy powder in the newly-opened bowl.
And as you watch thousands of tons of snow cascading down the mountain, remember that this is probably what ski patrol is trying to prevent by closing off parts of the mountain on days where helibombing isn't possible. It's not cool to duck under closed lines – you put yourself, your ski mates and your rescuers at risk if you trigger an avalanche.
Recently while covering the Canadian Avalanche Centre's (www.avalanche.ca) avalanche awareness days I was lucky enough to get a close up view of the heli-bombing from the top of the mountain. The best video from the day was taken by 16-year-old Fernie resident Dylan Siggers. I'm actually in the video – that's me playing with a camera in one of the first shots.
Enjoy!
Shots of heli bombing at Fernie Alpine Resort are from the video by Dylan Siggers
Read more from Rebecca:
Posted by Rebecca Edwards - Fri, 19/02/2010 - 1:33pm
Last year a couple of friends visited us from the UK. On their first night I told them not to worry if in the morning they got woken up by explosions.
It would just be the avalanche control bombing on Fernie Alpine Resort, a few of kilometres from our house, I explained.
“Yeah – right!” they said, clearly thinking I was playing a prank on them. The next morning, as the windows shook from the bombs being thrown from a helicopter 1,200 metres above our house, they appeared for breakfast and sheepishly admitted that maybe I had been telling the truth.
Fernie's mountain alarm clock is the sign it's a good day to drag yourself out of bed and up the mountain for first lift.
Our ski area is blessed with huge amounts of powder each year that make for epic skiing or boarding in the mountain's five bowls, but there are also large cliff faces at the top of each bowl that pose a nasty avalanche threat – you don't want to be underneath when one of those faces slides.
So after most snowfalls, the ski patrol are up there, either heli bombing or setting bombs on foot.
If you're ever up early the day after a big dump, keep a look out for the helicopter over the mountain – you can even see it from the main street of Fernie, if you look carefully.
The helicopter will hover for a few minutes as the explosives are dropped, usually four or five in one place.
Then it will zoom out of the way, and two minutes later you'll see a plume of snow going up, then a little while later (depending how far away you are) you hear the sound and may feel a shock wave in the air. Only then do you see the flood of snow rushing down the mountain.
If you're still in town at that point, it's time to grab your skis and head up to the mountain for some crazy powder in the newly-opened bowl.
And as you watch thousands of tons of snow cascading down the mountain, remember that this is probably what ski patrol is trying to prevent by closing off parts of the mountain on days where helibombing isn't possible. It's not cool to duck under closed lines – you put yourself, your ski mates and your rescuers at risk if you trigger an avalanche.
Recently while covering the Canadian Avalanche Centre's (www.avalanche.ca) avalanche awareness days I was lucky enough to get a close up view of the heli-bombing from the top of the mountain. The best video from the day was taken by 16-year-old Fernie resident Dylan Siggers. I'm actually in the video – that's me playing with a camera in one of the first shots.
Enjoy!
Shots of heli bombing at Fernie Alpine Resort are from the video by Dylan Siggers