Despite an increase in back country travels, in the past 20 years the total number of fatalities remained about constant in the Alps. This decreasing risk of death was accompanied by developments in rescue technology, avalanche forecasts and education. Now, maps of slope incline and snow cover information have become more readily available which have potential to enhance our decision making. We gave existing trip planning strategies a second look and developed a new approach which builds on terrain and snowpack information.

Risk assessment zooms in on the crux-slope. In other words, we learn about conditions when we travel and update our view. With more terrain and snow cover information becoming available beforehand, we suggest one single framework for backcountry risk assessment that takes the user through all zoom levels – from trip planning to slope evaluation. The framework helps to assess the risk which is a combination of the avalanche release probability and potential consequences. To do so, we weigh several aspects regarding either the likelihood of triggering or the consequences. These aspects include, for instance, typical avalanche problems, expected avalanche size or the crack propagation propensity – rather than simple proxies such as slope angle and aspect. Thus, the risk assessment eventually relies on the characteristics at the particular crux slope and a local danger assessment. Based on a local, rather than a regional danger assessment the presented approach circumvents the scale mismatch between slope evaluation and regional forecast. Moreover, due to its strong focus on terrain characteristics the presented approach becomes applicable for freeriding when terrain is often well known. On the other hand, the approach provides guidance in situations when challenging snowpack conditions require careful judgement.

Our approach substantially differs from existing methods in the way that the consequences are considered during trip planning. Also, the regional forecast is downscaled to a local danger description. Moreover, our risk assessment then relies on several terrain and snowpack characteristics rather than on thresholding as such by slope angle limits. As another advantage, we can follow the same line of thought at all zoom levels. In conclusion we see the presented approach as a first, but necessary step towards a comprehensive framework for back country risk assessment.