Vail & Summit County

You can trigger a large and deadly avalanche on west through north to south-facing slopes. There may not be any signs of instability before you trigger an avalanche, or you might travel the same slope multiple times without incident until you trigger an avalanche. You are most likely to trigger an avalanche from a shallower area of the snowpack like near exposed rocks, shrubs, or grass. Avalanches that break near the ground are becoming harder to trigger, but if you do they will be large and possibly wrap around multiple terrain features. Avalanches can be triggered from the bottom of a slope or from a distance so keep your margins for error wide. Slopes less than about 30 degrees that are not connected to larger, steeper slopes above offer safer riding options.