Avalanche Canada won’t be giving forecasts on snow conditions in April because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

More specifically, it says backcountry operations closing early because of the pandemic means that data on snow conditions is limited.

“Heli-skiing, cat skiing companies, backcountry lodges, professional guides. Pretty well anybody that has a professional role to play in the snow, if you will. And that’s been drying up as you know, because pretty well everybody has shut down. So our data stream is fairly non-existent, so it’s pretty hard to produce a forecast,” executive director Gilles Valade tells NL News.

Valade also says the non-profit organization doesn’t want to promote backcountry recreation during a public health crisis, pointing out that health officials everywhere are urging people to stay home.

“So we made the conscious decision that we were going to stop providing information starting this weekend, and play our part to try to flatten the curve and avoid the worst. The mountains are going to be there next year, it’s going to snow again. We shouldn’t put our own desire to recreate ahead of other more important things at this point.”

Backcountry users also won’t be able to submit trip reports because the organization will be shutting down its Mountain Information Network. It says the MIN network could also encourage people to go into the backcountry.

The last avalanche forecast for the season will come out on Saturday.

Avalanche Canada says it’s ending those forecasts about a month early.