Sublimely In The Moment
Perhaps fulfilling - in their zeal for being in the moment, utterly unaware, disinterested in anything but their fascination with what they're engaged in - survival of the fittest.
How can people in a potentially dangerous environment be so completely cut off from reality? Everyone admires the beauty of a landscape with its mounds, hills and valleys, trees and shrubbery enveloped in a pristine blanket of snow. And those hills and plains just invite exhilarating speed, best accomplished by snowmobilers in the heedless glory of competition.
Oblivious to the potential danger they present to themselves. By their laxity in fully informing themselves of the safety of their enterprise. All the more absurd given the fascination with and mass-market use of communication devices. What would it take, after all, to zone in on avalanche warnings before undertaking the life-precarious adventure of soaring off onto those pristine hills, adequately informing oneself?
The area around Revelstoke had just recently received fresh snowfall, and it was very enticing. But at the same time for the last several weeks people were warned that the potential for avalanches was high. And on the very day that several hundred people set out to watch three annual snowmobiling events in Revelstoke, urgent avalanche warnings had been launched. Of those several hundred people, none of them aware?
The organizers themselves of these three events, if not the participants, would surely have felt they had an obligation to keep themselves informed, would they not? Well, evidently not.
A massive avalanche struck, and people were inundated with all those unstable layers of snow and ice that washed over the area. Mere hours after the Canadian Avalanche Centre issued a special warning for the week-end, for the Kootenay-Boundary area, along with the Southern Selkirk and South Chilcotin Mountains north of Whistler.
In fact, even prior to the Saturday avalanche where several hundred people found themselves in the path of that massive avalanche, ten others had struck in the Kootenay-Boundary area since Friday. Now the RCMP and rescue crews along with police dog teams and rescue helicopters are rescuing people from their folly.
The numbers of those who will be found buried and suffocated will tell the story.
How can people in a potentially dangerous environment be so completely cut off from reality? Everyone admires the beauty of a landscape with its mounds, hills and valleys, trees and shrubbery enveloped in a pristine blanket of snow. And those hills and plains just invite exhilarating speed, best accomplished by snowmobilers in the heedless glory of competition.
Oblivious to the potential danger they present to themselves. By their laxity in fully informing themselves of the safety of their enterprise. All the more absurd given the fascination with and mass-market use of communication devices. What would it take, after all, to zone in on avalanche warnings before undertaking the life-precarious adventure of soaring off onto those pristine hills, adequately informing oneself?
The area around Revelstoke had just recently received fresh snowfall, and it was very enticing. But at the same time for the last several weeks people were warned that the potential for avalanches was high. And on the very day that several hundred people set out to watch three annual snowmobiling events in Revelstoke, urgent avalanche warnings had been launched. Of those several hundred people, none of them aware?
The organizers themselves of these three events, if not the participants, would surely have felt they had an obligation to keep themselves informed, would they not? Well, evidently not.
A massive avalanche struck, and people were inundated with all those unstable layers of snow and ice that washed over the area. Mere hours after the Canadian Avalanche Centre issued a special warning for the week-end, for the Kootenay-Boundary area, along with the Southern Selkirk and South Chilcotin Mountains north of Whistler.
In fact, even prior to the Saturday avalanche where several hundred people found themselves in the path of that massive avalanche, ten others had struck in the Kootenay-Boundary area since Friday. Now the RCMP and rescue crews along with police dog teams and rescue helicopters are rescuing people from their folly.
The numbers of those who will be found buried and suffocated will tell the story.
Labels: Canada, Environment, Realities
posted by Pieface @ 7:05 PM
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