Fernie Avalanche closures..

A snowHead

This is slightly out of date but still (I think worth posting).

Was at Fernie Saturday / Sunday and experienced a lot of the hill (all of the bowls basically) closed due to avalanche. They had significant in-bounds avalanches in cedar bowl and lizard bowl on friday (probably size 3 - could see whole trees taken down) and as such closed the majority of the slopes. This is fine except that that they didn't tell you any of this until after you had brought the lift tickets when as you got up to the top the patrollers were explaining (I might not have brought the ticket if I had known how little I would have to ski).

If you are considering a last minute deal to Fernie before you book I would make sure you get an up-to-date and realistic assessment of what is open. Do not rely on the website (it still saying temporary closures) - phone up and ask someone which bowls are open.

A snowHead

sweaman2, Gosh that's scary ( the avalanche, not the lift ticket scenario)

Last minute deal to Panorama would be worth it (was there last week)

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

I should add - the inbounds avalanches on friday were on closed terrain (the majority of the resort was shut Friday apparently as they tried to clear it for the weekend) and may or may not have been triggered by explosives (apparently they couldn't tell as it was low visability). So people weren't skiing in the areas at the time of the events. What annoyed me was the ambiguity over openings on Saturday were the ticket sellers were saying one thing but the patrollers were pretty clear about 10 minutes later.

You need to Login to know who's really who.

FAR ticket policy sucks. I had to argue with a woman for about 30 minutes to get a refund once on a similar day when only Bear was open (& a raincheck was of nil value to me as we were touring BC and not going back to Fernie. Mind you for a resort that is basically all exposed to a hanging headwall it does pretty well on getting stuff open.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

It's been mental here (the word is craziest the snowpack has been in 50 years), and things have been changing so fast that most departments find out from Patrol at the top of lifts, including ticket sales. I was teaching Friday afternoon, and I don't think anyone expected the Elk to shut too for 45mins and leave just the Mooses. I did see a lot of day ticket holders do a lot of swearing when this happened.... They should do snow checks for these kind of days I'd of thought?

Help!!

Fernie Avalanche closures..

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