Vail & Summit County

You can trigger an avalanche on easterly-facing slopes at all elevations. The most dangerous slopes are at upper elevations where strong winds on Saturday drifted recent snow into cohesive slabs that rest on weak layers buried two to four feet deep. You may not see or hear obvious signs of unstable snow before triggering a large avalanche. The only way to deal with this avalanche issue is to avoid slopes where thick slabs rest on weak, collapsible layers over crusts. Cornice failures and slides within the new snow can also trigger larger avalanches that break on these more deeply buried weak layers.