Mountain Information Network — FAQ

It’s a free service for sharing information about riding, ice, avalanche, snowpack, and weather conditions as well as incidents in real time. Posts are not moderated and go live as soon as they are submitted or, if you’re offline, as soon as a connection is obtained. You can post and view information online at avalanche.ca or with the Avalanche Canada app on your iOS or Android device.

The short answer is a definite Yes! The Quick Report was carefully designed to allow anyone to share valuable and pertinent data, regardless of their level of training or how much experience they have. With a few clicks, answers to questions in the Quick Report provide information about snowpack conditions, weather, and avalanche activity. Adding a photo or two and some comments makes the Quick Report a fast, efficient, and effective way to tell your fellow users what you experienced and help Avalanche Forecasters get a good picture of local conditions in your area.

Sharing information helps other users make better decisions about where and when to ride safely. It also helps Avalanche Canada forecasters provide better public avalanche safety information, especially in areas where other sources of data are scarce, such as the:

• North Rockies
• Northwest Inland
• Western parts of the Kootenay-Boundary
• Southern parts of the Purcells
• Northern parts of the South Coast Inland
• Vancouver Island
• Yukon

You can also share your MIN reports on other social media platforms, so submitting to the MIN helps you keep your friends up to date on where you’ve been and what you’ve been doing in the mountains.

Yes! Sending just a photo that shows what the weather is doing, depicts an avalanche, or simply illustrates riding conditions is very useful. And try the Quick Report, it’s a perfect way for new users to ease into the snow and avalanche world.

Go to avalanche.ca and click on the markers to view the information at that location. Or, get the Avalanche Canada mobile app from the App Store or Google Play. When you open the app, clicking on the map markers opens the information submitted. A list of MIN reports is also available, which you can filter by date, report type, and region.

Take a look at the demonstration videos, which can be found on the MIN overview page.

Using the mobile app:

• Tap the menu icon in the top left corner
• Choose "Create a Report" from the dropdown menu under "Mountain Information Network"

Using a browser

• Go to avalanche.ca
• Click the blue icon in the bottom left corner of the map

Take a look at the demonstration videos, which can be found on the MIN overview page.

If you are making a submission on the website and want to upload multiple photos, you cannot upload them one at a time. You must select all of your photos at the same time and submit them together.

Take an avalanche course or hire a guide and ask your instructor/guide to teach you how to complete the more advanced reports. Avalanche Canada suggests the AST 2 course for backcountry recreationists who want to obtain the skills required to submit and use the advanced reports.

Avalanche Canada often offers MIN training sessions at outreach and awareness events. Look for these events in your community. If you’d like to organize a training session for your club, organization, or community please contact:
Karl Klassen
Public Avalanche Warning Service Manager
kklassen@avalanche.ca

Some MIN reports contain acronyms to communicate snowpack test results and other information. We've created a page to help you understand the most common acronyms found in these reports.

1. Click on the ‘settings’ icon at the right of the top menu bar and select ‘My Account’
2. Click on ‘My Mountain Information Network Reports.’
3. Select the report you want to edit.
4. Make the necessary edits and re-submit your report.

Send an email to support@avalanche.ca or call Avalanche Canada at 250-837-2141. We will delete inappropriate posts as soon as possible.

Send an email to: support@avalanche.ca. Please include as much of the following information as possible:

• Are you using the mobile app or the website?
• If using the website, what browser and version you are using.
• The type of device you are using, e.g. Mac, PC, tablet/smartphone, model

A full description of the problem including:

• The steps you took, in what order.
• What you saw on your screen (screen shots are helpful).
• Screen shots or contents of any error messages.
• What happened, or didn't happen.
• How you resolved the problem if you were able to figure out a work-around.

It also helps to tell us if:

• You've used the app before successfully and this is something new.
• This is the first time you've tried the app and you can't make it work.
• This happen every time you try to use the app.
• This is an intermittent problem that only happens sometimes. If this is the case, try to assess what's different about where, when, and how you use the app when it's working as opposed to when it doesn't work.
  

We try to respond to major issues affecting many users right away but it can take days or longer to track down the cause of a bug, figure out how to fix it, then get resources in place to update the app; this is especially true in the case of intermittent problems.

We track and log minor bugs and deal with them in our routine update cycle, which may occur only once or twice a year depending on how many outstanding issues are on the fix list. Once we complete an update, we submit it to Google Play and the App Store, where it can take up to two weeks before it appears on your update list.

Absolutely. We’re interested in your comments, questions, suggestions, and stories about how the app helped you or what we could do to make it help you more.
At this time we are specifically interested in your thoughts about:

• Why you use the app and what you like about it.
• Why you don't use the app and what you don't like about it.
• If you don't use it, what we could do to encourage you to try again.
• Would you use a small-screen mobile device (e.g. smartphone) to submit: Avalanche, Snowpack, Weather reports and Incident Reports.

Send your feedback to support@avalanche.ca