New avalanche website planned

The Flathead National Forest has plans to create a new avalanche awareness website and information service by late fall.

Forest supervisor Chip Weber said last week there’s a growing demand for avalanche and snow-condition information as more and more users head for the hills when the snow flies.

Currently, the Glacier Country Avalanche Center, which was founded by a group of local backcountry enthusiasts in the mid-1990s, offers avalanche updates twice a week during winter months. It also posts reports on avalanche accidents or events, but those reports can sometimes come weeks after an event.

GCAC draws on reports from Forest Service staff and other local experts but is not a Forest Service entity.

The new website would be run by Forest Service staff but would also rely on support from backcountry skiing and snowmobiling groups and other entities.

The Flathead area in the past had no dedicated funding for avalanche awareness and safety programs, even though a few accidents occur every winter  — many of them fatal. The Forest plans to use about $22,000 from its recreational budget to set up the new program.

“We decided that as a forest, this is important,” Weber said.

The new website should be under review by mid-November and up and running by early December, said Becky Smith-Powell, the Forest’s recreational program leader.

Once it gets off the ground, the hope is to built public-private partnerships so avalanche alerts and reports can be taken in a more timely fashion.

The Gallatin National Forest has a similar program with a budget of about $120,000 annually, Weber noted. More than half its budget comes from private donations, however.

Involvement from a private partner will certainly be needed if the effort plans on utilizing Facebook.

Forest spokesman Wade Muehlhof noted that U.S. Department of Agriculture policy specifically prohibits the Forest Service from setting up its own Facebook pages. However, a friends group could set up a page and use the Forest Service information.

What will happen to the GCAC Web site and organization remains to be seen. Brad Lamson, a GCAC board member and a backcountry skier, supported the idea of better updates and more education but wondered whether the Forest Service wasn’t “reinventing the wheel.”

Parties also seemed to agree the new service should employ a director who would oversee the operation and investigate avalanche incidents and issue reports in a more timely manner.