Front Range

Avoid steep slopes with signs of wind-drifted snow. Fresher wind-drifted features will have a rounded and smooth appearance. These drifts will also feel stiffer than softer, wind-sheltered, and relatively safer slopes. Older wind-drifted layers will feel very stiff, and you can tell by the bare rocks where they are not. Avalanches that you trigger can break near the ground, taking the entire season's snowpack with it. Steep rocky areas with highly variable snowpack depths are the slopes where you are more likely to trigger a large avalanche.