A huge chunk of the province is now under a special avalanche warning, a warning Avalanche Canada says will remain in place through to Sunday.
Senior Avalanche Forecaster Grant Helgeson says huge amounts of snow is suddenly falling in the mountains but is not sitting on the surface very well.
He says the snowfall and unstable mass of snow is being complicated with warming temperatures cranking up the avalanche dangers.
Helgeson says this weekend with the warmer temperatures and some blue skies could draw people into the mountains something that has him worried.
“So what we anticipate while natural avalanches will become more unlikely it is really a prime condition for human triggered avalanches. You will probably see a lot of considerable in the avalanche forecast. We encourage folks to keep checking that daily for updated information. It is not an extreme time but but what it is, is a time when we can really go out there and have human triggered avalanches.”
Should people avoid going into the back-country?
“It is not necessarily a do not do it. For folks who have avalanche training and can actually identify non-avalanche terrain and go out there and recreate in the trees and have that skill it might be a good time to go to the mountains. For those without avalanche training they should actually stick to places where the avalanche danger is actually controlled for them like ski areas.”
The warning covers Purcells, Kootenay Boundary, North Rockies, the Columbias, Cariboos, Vancouver Island, Sea to sky country, and the south and north coastal mountains.