Vail & Summit County

Avoid recently wind-drifted slopes to reduce your risk of avalanches. Recently drifted snow sits on shallowly buried weak layers. You can trigger an avalanche about a foot deep on this layer that then gouges deeper into the snowpack, resulting in a more destructive avalanche. Although the most likely place to trigger avalanches is on wind-drifted slopes that face north through east to southeast, be careful anywhere you find drifted snow, such as on cross-loaded westerly-facing slopes in the Gore Range.