A16
Wallowa County Chieftain
LOCAL/REGIONAL
Wednesday, February 9, 2022
Avalanche center is digging in to fi nd dangers
By JAYSON JACOBY
Baker City Herald
JOSEPH
—
Victor
McNeil travels the back-
country of Northeastern
Oregon with a shovel, but he
uses the tool for a purpose
more profound than freeing
a stuck rig.
Saving lives, potentially.
McNeil is director of the
Wallowa Avalanche Center,
based in Joseph.
The
organization,
founded in 2009, monitors
the region for avalanche
danger that can pose a risk
to skiers, snowboarders,
snowshoers and snowmo-
bile riders who venture into
the region’s untrammeled
mountains.
A vital part of the cen-
ter’s work is digging pits in
the snow — hence McNeil’s
ubiquitous shovel — to
study the various layers in
the snowpack and identify
dangers, such as weak or
Victor McNeil/Contributed Photo
Victor McNeil, director of the Wallowa Avalanche Center, uses a snowmobile to travel into the
backcountry of Northeastern Oregon and assess avalanche danger.
icy sections, that can greatly
increase the avalanche risk.
“With avalanche fore-
casting, you really don’t
have the full picture until
you get out and get your
shovel in the snow,” McNeil
said. “That’s a huge part of
what we do.”
The center issues fore-
casts four days each week —
Thursday through Sunday
— for each of the four zones
in this corner of Oregon.
The center has its biggest
annual fundraiser last week-
end, the 10th annual East-
ern Oregon Backcountry
Festival at Anthony Lakes
Mountain Resort.
McNeil, who lives in La
Grande with his wife, Kelly,
who is an avalanche special-
ist with the center, said that
dividing Northeastern Ore-
gon into zones is necessary
because the conditions that
contribute to avalanche dan-
ger can vary widely among
them.
The zones are: Northern
Blue Mountains, Elkhorns,
Northern Wallowas and
Southern Wallowas.
That the Wallowas, a sin-
gle, albeit extensive, moun-
tain range is separated into
two regions illustrates the
point.
McNeil said the ava-
lanche danger can be sig-
nifi cantly diff erent between
the two Wallowas zones, in
part because in most winters
quite a bit more snow falls
in the southern section of the
range.
The
Northern
Blue
Mountains aren’t as lofty
as the Wallowas or the Elk-
horns, and thus more prone
to thaws and rain during
winter, which can result
in much diff erent ava-
lanche risks than elsewhere,
McNeil said.
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“There’s a lot of ground
to cover,” he said. “We want
to do the best we can to get
out into the fi eld and visit all
of the zones.”
McNeil said the cen-
ter also solicits fi eld reports
from experienced backcoun-
try travelers.
All the information is
available, for free, on the
center’s website: https://
w w w. w a l l o w a a v a l a n -
checenter.org/.
McNeil is the center’s
only salaried employee.
Other staff members, in
addition to Kelly McNeil,
are avalanche specialists
Michael Hatch (director
of the Outdoor Adventure
Program at Eastern Oregon
University), Tom Guthrie
and Caleb Merrill.
McNeil said all the cen-
ter’s staff members put in a
considerable amount of vol-
unteer work, although they
are reimbursed for travel
and other expenses.
Growing interest in
learning to recognize
avalanche danger
McNeil said the center’s
activities, and its budget,
have grown over the past
four years or so.
The annual budget,
which was about $30,000,
has risen to around $45,000.
McNeil said that unlike
some larger avalanche fore-
cast operations, the Wallowa
Avalanche Center doesn’t
receive
fi nancial
sup-
port from any government
agency. The center relies
on fundraisers such as the
Eastern Oregon Backcoun-
try Festival, and grants and
other donations.
But the biggest increase
in the budget has resulted
from the center’s avalanche
safety classes, which it
started off ering four years
ago, McNeil said.
With more people trav-
eling into the backcountry
in winter — a trend that has
accelerated during the pan-
See Danger, Page A17
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