Assessment of avalanche hazard of freeride skiing areas

Abstract. Freeride skiing and ski touring have been growing in popularity in Slovakia as an alternative to crowded ski slopes, offering skiers the thrill of untracked snow and challenging terrain. However, venturing into unmanaged mountain areas exposes participants to significantly greater dangers, especially avalanches and risk of falling. This study presents an approach for assessing avalanche hazard of freeride areas, demonstrated at the Jasná ski resort in Slovakia's Low Tatras. Using high-quality elevation data, precise vegetation mapping, and historical avalanche records, potential avalanche release zones were identified, their potential run-out paths for skier trigger avalanches (≤ size 3) were modelled, and the frequency in which are avalanches likely to occur on different slopes were approximated. Results show that 15.9 % of the area has high to very high release potential, with the most hazardous slopes concentrated on steep, north-facing terrain above 1700 metres. Simulations of more than 180 avalanche scenarios produced run-outs covering 44 % of the area. Frequency analysis found that 64.9 % of avalanche-prone slopes in freeride zones are subject to very frequent activity. Moreover, frequency approximation achieved 82,61 % match with intersecting areas of the existing avalanche cadastre. Based on the results the freeride zones were divided into 4 groups based on their danger level. The proposed approach can be adapted to other mountain regions and may be further improved by automating vegetation mapping, modelling additional avalanche types, and using open-source simulation tools.