Steamboat & Flat Tops

You can easily trigger an avalanche where you find more than about eight inches of fresh or wind-drifted snow. Rounded pillows of snow below ridgelines and in gullies where the wind has drifted snow are the areas you are most likely to trigger larger avalanches. Cracking or collapsing in the surface snow are signs you should head to lower angle slopes. Weak layers in the snowpack are buried deeply, but there is still a chance you could trigger a deeper slide, especially if you trigger a large avalanche in the surface snow. Shallow areas of the snowpack around exposed rocks and trees or along the edge or base of a slope are the places you are most likely to trigger a deeper avalanche. You can find safer travel in areas sheltered from the wind or on slopes less than about 30 degrees.