Backcountry Skiing

Is backcountry skiing safe?

It is one of the riskier common mountain sports, and almost all of the extra risk comes from avalanches. The best figure comes from Swiss data: SLF researchers matched national surveys of touring days with avalanche deaths and found 0.87 deaths per 100,000 ski touring days for Swiss residents between 2004/05 and 2014/15. That is 8.7 micromortsMicromortA one-in-a-million chance of death. It lets you compare the risk of very different activities on one scale.More in the glossary from avalanches alone.

Avalanches cause about 69% of ski tourer deaths in Austrian data. Add falls, crevasses and heart attacks and a touring day comes to about 13 micromorts on our estimate. A day at a US ski resort carries about 1, so a tour costs roughly ten resort days. An older Austrian estimate from 1986–1995 put all causes at 4.4 deaths per million touring days, so the true figure may be lower in some regions. We score the more recent Swiss figure, which rests on surveyed exposure.

Who dies on ski tours

The Swiss figures point to one group. Men on skis made up about 30% of touring days but 70% of avalanche deaths, and their risk was about 11 per million days against 3.3 for women. Tourers aged 30 to 59 had the highest risk per day, higher than the under-30s.

That pattern runs against the idea that experience protects you. Burtscher and colleagues reported that Austrian alpine club members had a higher death rate per touring day (5.3 per million) than non-members (3.7). The gap came from avalanches; members were less likely to die from falls or heart attacks. One likely explanation is that skill buys bolder routes rather than a safer version of the same route.

The risk per ski touring day barely changed in Switzerland between 1999 and 2010 (0.94 to 0.87 per 100,000), even as many more people took up the sport. Better gear and courses have not pushed it down.

The danger scale is the biggest lever

The single most useful number for a ski tourer is the regional avalanche danger level. SLF found that avalanche risk on a slope rises about fourfold with each step on the five-level scale. A slope at level 3 (considerable) is about 17 times riskier than the same slope at level 1 (low).

Level 3 is common, often comes with good snow and does not feel extreme. At that level the forecast usually names the dangerous aspects and elevations. Avoiding slopes steeper than about 30 degrees on those aspects is the decision that removes most of the risk.

If someone is buried

Survival depends on minutes. In Swiss data from 1981 to 2020, 91% of fully buried people dug out within 10 minutes survived, but only 31% of those found between 10 and 30 minutes. Most avalanche victims die of asphyxia, not trauma, which is why the transceiver, probe and shovel in your own group matter more than any rescue service. Survival has improved over the decades, from 43.5% of critically buried people in the 1980s to 53.4% across 1981–2020, as median rescue times fell from 45 to 25 minutes.

Snowshoers show the other side of this. They die in avalanches far less often per day, but when caught, 34% died in Swiss records against 10% of ski tourers, because fewer carried rescue gear or knew how to use it.

Falls, exhaustion and getting stuck

Avalanches dominate the deaths, but not the rescues. Of Swiss ski touring emergencies in 2025, 49% followed a fall, 20% were people stuck or exhausted, and only 14% were avalanches. Icy traverses, steep couloirs, cornices and crevasses on glacier tours all cause serious injuries. Heart attacks matter too: sudden cardiac deaths among Austrian ski tourers rose steeply after 59, to 10.4 per 100,000 tourers in that age group, all of them men.

How to tour more safely

1. Read the avalanche bulletin every morning and plan around the named aspects and elevations. At level 3 or above, keep to slopes under 30 degrees in those areas or choose another day.
2. Carry a transceiver, probe and shovel, every person, every tour, and practise companion rescue each season. An airbag pack helps but does not replace them.
3. Take an avalanche course and then tour with a guide or experienced partners before leading your own trips.
4. Cross steep slopes one at a time and regroup in safe spots, so a slide catches one person, not the group.
5. Turn back early. Fresh snow, wind loading, cracking or "whumpf" sounds and recent slides are signs to leave the slope.
6. Rope up on glaciers and check the weather window. Fog and wind turn a simple descent into a hard one.
7. Get a heart check if you are over 50 or have risk factors. Long climbs at altitude in the cold load the heart.

How we scored it

Fatality risk (60) rests on about 13 micromortsMicromortA one-in-a-million chance of death. It lets you compare the risk of very different activities on one scale.More in the glossary per touring day, built from the Swiss avalanche rate plus our estimate for other causes. Injury risk (60) is similar to resort skiing per day but more severe. Controllability (58) reflects how much the forecast and terrain choice can do, and how often experienced people still die. The remote setting scores lowest (40). Compare resort skiing and mountaineering, which carries far more risk per ascent.