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Safety Check List Avalanche safety mostly depends on skills but avalanche safety equipment is also essential:
• Avalanche Beacon
• Snow Shovel
• Probe
• Survival Blanket
• First Aid Kit

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10 important facts about avalanche risk and safety

The following are ten facts we think are important to be aware of. Read carefully and if you think there is something that can make this better let us know.

For full description or definition of any fact just click its title to expand.

1.	Neither avalanche beacon nor any other equipment does not provide protection from avalanches! In the past few years avalanche safety equipment became very important to any winter backcountry traveler. Not that it wasn't important before but technology improvements, increased awareness or more options made it more available to the public. Although that is all good always remember avalanches don't care what beacon or shovel you have.

2.	Avalanche risk factors are cumulative! For example, if you are climbing or skiing a 40 degree slope that has 30cm of new snow while the wind is blowing the risk is not determined only by the riskiest factor of those three (in this case the 30cm of new snow being likely the most risky one) but rather by a cumulation of all of them. Thus if you would to ski a 25 degree slope with the same wind the risk would degrees a lot even the amount of new snow would be the same.

3.	Companion rescue gives the greatest chance for survival for a buried victim! No one can help a buried person more than his fellow group members because they are right there where the accident happens, they have the most visual clues since they witnessed the scene, and they are the ones who make the first decisions about the buried member.

4.	People are mostly caught in avalanches that are triggered by themselves or by a member of the same group! This is a statistical fact but even a common sense tells you that if a slope cannot hold an additional load it will avalanche. And it is important to remember the group is not determined by whom you consider to be in "our" group but by the immediate conditions. So, if you happen to be on the slope with a skier you never saw, for that moment he and you become a part of the same group. (Also if you are not there when an avalanche happens you can't be caught, at least not by the same avalanche.)

5.	Avalanche rescue is a race against time! Once a person get buried by an avalanche the count-down starts! It's sad but true. Every second is precious and every decision makes the difference. This is the time when your regular practice of rescue action can pay off a big time.

6.	1 cubic metre of snow weighs approximately 250kg or 551 pounds! For example, a very small snow slab of 10m (33 feet) wide and 10m long with a depth of just 20cm (7.9 inches) can weigh around 5 tons or 11 023 pounds.

7.	The risk of avalanches increases significantly after a snowfall that is accompanied or followed by strong winds and low temperatures! Also in this case the risk factors are cumulative. But more specifically, snow layers don't merge very well (or not at all) when the temperatures are low (approximately under -7 degrees Celsius). The winds (if strong enough) can move an accumulate snow at particular places that can then become overloaded.

8.	Blowing snow accumulates during windy periods even in very clear weather! Blue skies are usually a sign of favorable weather although that doesn't mean the conditions are favorable as well. A wind only as high as 5 metres per second (18 km/h) can move significant amounts of snow to accumulate it on leeward slopes thus overloading them.

9.	During periods of thin and irregular snow pack the avalanche risk is extremely difficult to recognize! Usually at the beginning of winter, during winter with little snowfall or in early spring the snow pack is very thin and might be irregular. This makes it very hard to recognize the avalanche risks because we naturally assume it will be low (because of very little snow) and even snow stability assessments and tests can produce very different results even within reasonably small range (because of the irregularities).

10.	Human factor is the most unpredictable variable in the snow stability equation of physics, yet it is the most important one! Snow stability is determined by variables of physics such as angle, weight, friction and so on. These variables (factors) create an equation that determines how much load can a specific snow slope hold without avalanching. The load can increase with new snow or just by putting your weight on the slope. There is usually a very thin margin you have to work with. The same slope can hold an additional load of one skier but may not hold a load of two. Or it can hold one skier at a time to a certain point because a repeated load (even the same) can increase the pressure thus creating fractures in the snow pack. Thus, as you can see, the amount of risk is greatly determined by our decisions and only then by the conditions we based our decisions on.

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