I have email CCed the okanogan-wenatchee National Forest supervisor, Kristin Bail, in the past concerning safety and social conflicts on federal land in the North Cascades.
The responce that I received from our District Ranger Chris Furr in March of 2020 made it clear that he desires that I not contact his boss and he "will pass on any information that is pertinent to her."
At the time, we were discussing safety issues related to off road snowmobile use in terrain areas used by skiers.
Others were working on that issue at the time. Chris Furr issued a snowmobile closure for a small amount of off road skier terrain up hwy 20. He acknowledge our safety concerns are valid however he used covid as an excuse for the closure.
The issue made it to Washington DC political lobbyist's for motorized off-road use and the closure was quickly rescinded.
Part of what I do is make sure these issues are part of the public record along with the FS response and the result.
In this case, a recent fatitiy occurred when a snowmobile triggered an avalanche down upon a BC skier.
Of course skiers also trigger Avalanches down on each other all the time including members of the same group, as was the case in this recent Maple pass accident.
However snowmobiler's often enter terrain areas that we are using and in a short amount time are above us.
Because of their weight and the energy that they impart to the snowpack, snowmobiles are able to trigger an avalanche long after that snow pack weakness is a concern for a skier. Or there is an avy concern in a specific area on a slope that the BC ski group does not plan to enter but the snowmobile does. And snowmobiles can trigger sympathetic slides that may affect the BC ski group but not them.
They can trigger an avalanche that effects the BC skier when they are above you or when they are below you.
In that snowmobiler avy trigger down on a BC skier, both were high school students and both died. A direct result of Governmental public land use policy.
"According to the Bridger-Teton Avalanche Center (BTAC), the two were on the slope at the same time when the slide occurred'"
https://backcountrymagazine.com/stories ... owmobiler/
Same with NCH ski corp dropping a load above us.
With Heliski guides, the first thing they do before they ski a slope is to do Avalanche control work. They do that by ski cutting any slope that has the potential to Avalanche. That is their safety protocol and for good reason.
We've already had an incident where a commercial guide triggered an avalanche down on a Backcountry skier on a day with avy concerns while the glide was doing Avalanche control work by ski cutting the slope. The BC skier saw the guide doing the ski cut and yelled up. The guide obviously did not assure that the slope was clear below prior to that potentially fatal action.
As with the avy near miss at Maple pass, they don't often see us.
BC skiers don't want either of those motorized groups above them in Avalanche Terrain.