Prince George
residents are mourning the loss of longtime auto racing star Dallas Mayert.
The 40-year-old husband and father of two young boys was killed in the Sunday avalanche in the Torpy Mountain recreational area. His riding companion, an adult male Prince George resident, was also caught in the same avalanche but escaped the snow.
Both, said those acquainted with the men, were experienced snowmobilers and backcountry enthusiasts. They had accessed the popular recreation area via the Pass Lake Forest Service Road and were between 30 and 40 kilometres from their vehicle when the disaster struck.
"I don't believe they were high-marking," said Prince George RCMP spokesman Cpl. Craig Douglass, referring to a risky game snowmobilers have been known to play, during which sledders challenge each other to reach the highest possible point on a snow face.
"Our initial indication was that they were just on a course from one point to another."
Mayert is an award-winning snowcross and professional stock car racer.
His skills on a sled are renowned and he admitted to The Citizen in 2000 that he was no longer prone to push the sport's envelope.
"I'm smarter now and I know you have to actually plan to be at work on Monday instead of taking the necessary risks to get a good result," he told reporter Ted Clarke that year. "The only thing I know for sure is I'm 100 per cent in control on the track. A few years ago I was willing to take those risks."
Damian Pighin of the Prince George Snowmobile Club has sledded with Mayert, and was involved in setting up the club's first avalanche training seminar of the year.
They were at that seminar when the word came in of the incident.
About 55 people were in the room. Some of them were skiers, some hikers, said Pighin, but far too few of them were
snowmobilers.
He offered the club's condolences to the Mayert family and stressed that this incident should be the flashpoint for every snowmobiler planning to visit the mountains.
Mayert, said Pighin, was the embodiment of the professional snowmobiler, and even he couldn't perfectly predict when an avalanche would strike. It is therefore essential to take formal avalanche training and practice using approved avalanche gear whenever anyone ventures above the winter treeline.
"I've been caught with my pants down, even after taking the training," he said. "I triggered a big one that broke off about 10 feet from me and rode the ridge for easily 400 metres. It was a deep, long slab of snow and really hard-packed."
He added that experience on a machine, or experience in the out-of-doors is not the same as formal avalanche awareness training.
Without the courses available, that experience may actually be leading you into danger, Pighin said, and if you haven't had the course or take it anew every winter, no one should go up the local mountains without a beacon.
With this incident happening so early in the sledding year, Pighin wonders if this isn't a warning about conditions across the entire region.
"There could be a really weak layer in our snowpack that will affect our whole season," he said. "If there's a weak layer under there, everyone needs to be on high alert no matter where you are. Who knows how far down it is? So dig down to ground and study the layers as you go."
The snow on Torpy Mountain was found by searchers to be about six feet deep, said Douglass. Three feet of that had fallen in the 24 hours just prior to the avalanche.
Pighin said more avalanche awareness training would be available in the Prince George area during the winter. Those interested in backcountry travel of any kind should check frequently with the Canadian Avalanche Association's website and if enough people emailed him (he has an email link on the Prince George Snowmobile Club's website) another course could be organized by the club.
