Know the ‘no risk zone’ off-piste & ski touring

You can choose. There’s almost always a choice of avoiding avalanche terrain, AND still having fun when off-piste and ski touring.

Avalanche terrain is defined as areas with steep slopes of 30° steepness above, around or below you. When you’re unsure and in the decision making process about where to go, choose the ‘low hanging fruit’ of the no risk zone to avoid these potential risk areas in avalanche terrain. Here’s a simple way of identifying these areas.

Looking at slope angles is the first key point in our HAT Accident Reduction Framework. It comes under the heading of Where to Go /Decision -Making. The article below on Slope Angle Measurement should help you to get more from all our upcoming events, and to have more fun off-piste and ski touring.  All the key points are wrapped up in our Accident Reduction Framework * helping you to train, remember and apply the things that matter to make yourself safer in avalanche terrain. For a more complete version of the ‘Framework’ with more information, see the HAT Safety Pack.*  You can also get a lot more info and advice at one our events lined up as part of the ORTOVOX/HAT Avalanche Awareness Tour.

The ORTOVOX/HAT Avalanche Awareness Tour kicks off at the end of October. This year’s theme is Risk Management: Decision Making, Risk Reduction How to Manage a Crisis.

* Receive a free HAT Safety Pack when you attend a Talk.

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Know the ‘no risk zone’ for off-piste skiing!

There are very few quick, simple and accurate rules when it comes to off-piste and avalanche risk management. Indeed, we usually advise you to avoid going on automatic quick and simple rules as they’re not always accurate and can be dangerous traps (even if they work most of the time).

However, it is now a generally accepted rule that no avalanche of any consequence to you will release if there are no steep slopes of 30°. This means that if you’re skiing in an area with no slopes steeper than 30° above, around or below you, you’re in a ‘no-risk’ zone.

A 30° slope is about the equivalent of the steepest part of a red run to black run steepness in European ski areas.

30° is the first key point in the HAT Framework (also the key point for Decision Making/Where you Go) because it is the avalanche terrain threshold. Once you go steeper than that, you enter avalanche terrain. When you decide to go steeper you need to apply all of the other points in the Framework.

The video below shows how to do a simple test with your ski poles to get a very close approximation of a 30° reference point on a slope.

Most topographic maps now outline the slopes of 30° steepness and more to help ski tourers and mountaineers plan their routes using this reference.

The image below is from French IGN maps app, Iphigen.ie.

The colours on this ‘Carte des Pentes’ refer to slope steepnesses on the map. White areas are less steep than 30°; yellow shows slopes between 30-35°; orange is 35-40°, and so on. You can get ‘slope steepness maps’ as a sort of overlay for many map apps. This is from the French IGN map app, Iphigen.ie., while Fatmap.com is a more Anglo friendly one.

The route marked in black shows a ‘cautious’ route through avalanche terrain on a danger level 2 day. Note that the beginning of the route is in a ‘no risk’ zone then it moves into an area that barely touches any slopes of 30°. ‘Cautious’ because travel on the day was a danger level 2. On a level 2 day, triggering an avalanche that releases from above is so highly unlikely that it is next to zero (and natural avalanches are just as highly unlikely). See our HAT Safety Pack for more info on danger levels and more!

I’ll be talking about this and more off-piste skiing subjects during this year’s ORTOVOX/HAT Off-piste Awareness Tour, kicking off in London on 29 October and finishing in Glasgow on 26 November.

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Safety is Freedom!