Avalanche near Golden, B.C. leaves two dead

The Thursday slide is the second deadly avalanche in British Columbia in under a week.

A second deadly avalanche in under a week in British Columbia has claimed two lives, Avalanche Canada said Thursday.

The slide took place in the Purcell Mountain range, but its exact location has yet to be confirmed.

Alberta-based STARS air ambulance said it was called to rendezvous with the BC Ambulance Service at the airport near Golden Thursday afternoon. No patients were transported.

No details on who was killed and where they are from were available Thursday night. The Golden area is a popular destination for backcountry enthusiasts from both B.C. and Alberta.

Avalanche Canada warned the snowpack in the province’s interior remains “incredibly complex and difficult to manage.”

“Deep persistent slab problems may exhibit no signs of instability before a large avalanche occurs. They’re most likely to be triggered on steep and rocky slopes where the snow cover is thin or variable,” the organization said.

“Choosing low-risk terrain and maintaining good travel habits, including having one person on a slope at a time and avoiding slopes where other groups are riding, is especially important with a dangerous snowpack.”

The tragedy comes just days after two skiers, one of them a volunteer with the Central Cariboo Search and Rescue group, were killed in an avalanche in the Potato Peak area, about 200 kilometres southwest of Williams Lake.