It's considered the most dangerous state for these disasters, and most of them happen during snowstorms or right afterward, according to the National Weather Service.

The risk is much higher in the back country than it is at popular ski areas, but rescue teams have a number of methods to lower that risk.

Avalanches occur when unstable layers of snow on a sloped surface are disturbed.

You need three things for an avalanche to happen, right, you need a slope angle and you need snow on it.

And then we need a trigger.

So a trigger could be a skier and it could be a bomb.

So it's 6 30 in the morning and we're going out with ski patrol this morning.

We're gonna be doing avalanche mitigation with the helicopter assist, so what we'll be doing is we'll be taking two teams up to the top of my right peak with explosives.

If we can initiate an avalanche, then we're not going to be taken by surprise.

Mom, I'm putting on sunscreen.

Yeah, Helicopter day is a It's a fun day.

We don't do many of them.

Are you worried at all about your own apple interest?

And you're doing this kind of work?

Yeah.

You're throwing bombs in avalanche terrain, so just be ready.

Like, have your buff ready.

Don't have anything like they can fly away.

You can.

You can?

Yeah.

Why don't you huddle down right here with us?

Palmira peak.

Where they're gonna be landing is essentially an area of about maybe 30 square feet down.

You want to actually be able to park up there?

You just kind of jump out.

That's right.

Mhm.

Mhm.

Mhm, Mhm, Mhm.

We're going to get back on the snowmobiles.

You guys want to boogie?

Yeah.

All right.

Yeah.

Alison, those are five pounders right there.

Yeah.

Mhm.

Yeah.

Oh, they're fine.

We try to make sure that if there's gonna be a slide on the mountain, it's initiated by ski patrol and not by the public is the key.

You know, to make sure that we're initiating avalanche when there's no one underneath it.

And when we can control the environment and we know what's going on and we're not blindsided by natural avalanche.

So the back country area where we are is all national Forest land.

And essentially, we don't do anything in the back country.

Um, so skiers that go outside of our backcountry access gates, they're doing it on their own public lands and on their own accord.

And it's get in yourself and get out yourself.

Avalanches in the back country that involved people getting buried don't often have great outcomes.

We just made it up to one of the highest point on the mountain and Telluride.

We're at a place called High Camp, and this is where we're going to meet up with Gary and Kim.

They're a married couple who have an Avalanche dog named Lady be.

We're gonna go out with them for some of their training, get a sense of what it takes for an Avalanche dog to get out there and actually rescue someone.

Gary and Kim Rashard run the nonprofit Telluride Avalanche dogs.

They say dogs are the best rescuers after an avalanche because they can sniff out people buried in snow and find them more quickly than human rescuers.

Gary and Kim's Avalanche dog, Lady B, has been on the job for nine years, ever since she was a puppy, kind of the calm before the storm.

And once she gets wind of either radio call or her harness being jiggled or something, she goes nuts.

We're gonna hide down and hold, and then Gary and Lady, you're gonna find us and then rescue us.

Okay?

Yeah.

Uh huh.

There we go.

Great.

And the dog is your best friend.

There are only, you know, one of our only means of finding you.