5 Best Low Avalanche Hazard Routes

Learn how to XC ski...

... it will serve you well in the long-term and perhaps improve your fitness and skills.

The obvious answer is to be on flat, <25° terrain. Personally, I find that fairly boring, and prefer steeper trees. All of these involve some degree of risk (and certainly avy gear/knowledge) on a "high danger" day, but are generally manageable choices when combined with standard good practices and terrain management. If you're not comfortable with that, there's XC skiing, as recommended above.
All of these have slid before, but I would wager that 95% of the time, it occured when the party exited the forested areas.

Kendall
Catherine
Cave Ridge
Skyline Ridge
Yodelin
Union

I'm with Randy and a few others who have posted - on a high hazard day I'll ride the lifts (often a great time for that!), xc ski somewhere that isn't exposed to potential slide paths (e.g. gold creek at Snoqualmie, as long as you don't head up toward Rampart Ridge, and as long as you stop short of where the first slide path comes down to the valley, this s/be fine on a "High" hazard day; same with XC on the sno-mo roads by Kachess Lake), do a lowland hike as a stairstepper, bike, clean the office...

I've been out on some tours with which I'm quite familiar on high hazard days, and have found it's just not fun, as we take a low angle route up, find that the snow is spooking us (duh) so we take the low angle route back down - figure 11's in and around the skin track. It's just more fun to do a rain hike or XC or ride lifts for me. I've seen a party member kick off a decent-size pocket slab in moderately steep mature trees on a Considerable hazard day so I'm not keen to roll the dice in such spots on a "high" day (read up on deaths from avies in trees - often these turn into body part recovery missions, so good luck with that air bag...), but clearly mileage varies for others. But as my mom always told me, just because the other kids are doing it...

The obvious answer is to be on flat, <25° terrain. Personally, I find that fairly boring, and prefer steeper trees. All of these involve some degree of risk (and certainly avy gear/knowledge) on a "high danger" day, but are generally manageable choices when combined with standard good practices and terrain management. If you're not comfortable with that, there's XC skiing, as recommended above.
All of these have slid before, but I would wager that 95% of the time, it occured when the party exited the forested areas.

Kendall
Catherine
Cave Ridge
Skyline Ridge
Yodelin
Union

See, how hard was that.

To the vibers--you're going to frequent a public website about easy ski touring and then be lame to people who come here and ask questions?

At the very least, tell them to go buy your favorite buddy's ski touring book. Tell them something good.

Also, I highly recommend taking an AIARE Level 1 course

And what was your constructive contribution in response to the OP? I think that sharing what we actually do on high hazard days is pretty spot-on as a response to the question posed at top.

OK, I'll post a few book suggestions - the XC ski tours 1 and 2 books by the Mountaineers, authored by Kirkendall. I don't know if they're still in print but they are surely still purchasable via online avenues even if out of print. Years of good high hazard conditions fun to be had listed in there.

I should have been more explicit in my original post. I was not asking specifically about backcountry routes during a “High” on the Avalanche Danger Rating Scale. In my mind, even “Considerable” is high avalanche danger. I was definitely not looking for “safe” routes, but “safer” routes that you might still consider enjoyable.

I should have also spent more time formulating my question since there is somewhat of a tendency for some posters to pontificate a little too much. I’m more used to having discussions with snow or ice climbers in a face to face environment where the default response is to share beta when possible. Although both ice climbs and most mountaineer routes are routinely rated for both commitment and grade in a more formal manner than backcountry skiing, they have many objective dangers just as backcountry skiing does. Route finding, Terrain Selection, Weather, Personal Experience, etc. Yet, I don’t see the same sort of condescending attitude that sometimes rears up on this site.

My question should have been posted more along these lines:

On a day when the avalanche danger is higher than you would like, what are your favorite backcountry routes to ski without resort skiing or classic cross country skiing? Maybe routes that are lower angle or are more protected due to the terrain features.

Thank you Befree 32 for posting some suggestions. I have skied some of those and was looking for more similar options on those days I don’t want to venture into more risky terrain. In response to Jim Oker’s post, I totally understand that many don’t like the “low angle boring routes” (my words, not his), but I love to tour even if we are not ripping turns on the way down. I would rather do 11’s on my tele skis in a more remote location than ski classic cross country or go on a rainy bike ride (which I do a lot of both). As Jim Oker said “but clearly mileage varies” so everyone has different priorities. And I totally agree with the sentiment of “just because the other kids are doing it…”, I just told my kids the same thing yesterday.

The discussions in many posts are enlightening, thought provoking and funny. Overall we must take the positive with the negative. Sometimes the negativity actually promotes the discussion.