Some snowy spots have frequent avalanches while just a stone's throw away, they never happen. It's common to broad-brush avalanche danger and assume that if it's High in one place, it must be High everywhere else, too. This just isn't true. Even on very unstable days, you can still go to the mountains but you must be selective about your route and learn to recognize the steep terrain that is capable of producing an avalanche.
Snow is a granular substance, like sand.
If you've ever watched sand fall through an hourglass, you know that the pile at the bottom never gets any steeper, just bigger. That's because it can't. This is the bulls-eye angle for avalanches, too. On lower angled slopes, the snow can only start moving if the slope is extremely heavily loaded. On steeper slopes, snow sluffs off continuously, rather than forming dangerous slabs .