From what I recall, it seems that you mostly hike/climb with yourself. Which is good for the soul but inherently dangerous. I have thought I had more than a 50/50 chance of dying on two occasions. First was coming within yards of a black bear cub on an Algonquin Park trail. Second was off the summit of Whistler in the Flute Bowl at c. 6,500 feet. Got off the lift just as they shut the hill down because of the weather. The strongest wind I have ever felt and a blinding snowstorm with deep powder, no tracks and maybe ten yards visibility. It did not take long before my partner and I stopped and asked each other what the fuck are we going to do. No one around. Neither of us knew the Bowl well and had to go very slow and stick very close together. No possible way ski patrol would have found us if something happened. It was both terrifying and exhilarating. Us alone against nature. I am almost certain that we were only saved by a group of German/Swiss/Austrians that stopped and let us join them down to the treeline.
I do hike alone, and it is a bit dangerous. I follow most of the other guidelines, including leaving a description of my plans with family and expected return times. But reading incidents like this one is scary because taking care of myself until help arrived would be a real challenge. I think I'm more conservative because of it, turning back and taking the safer options. Above the tree line in blowing snow on skis sounds really scary and a good way to become a search and rescue story. Algonquin Mountain has some rock cairns to mark the trail, but in the winter they aren't always easy to spot. And hiking at least, the spot where the trail starts isn't obvious until you're standing in it. I suspect a ski route is even harder, with wide open areas?
Correct. In a Bowl you make your own trail or follow someone else's line. My biggest worry was unexpectedly skiing into a tree well or off a cliff at low speed, which is actually much more dangerous than at higher speed. A lot of big resorts now offer a GPS tracker that can tell them exactly where you are and as long as you are in-bounds they should be able to get to you fairly quickly. If that was available then, I probably would have activated it and said I just needed a guide out of there.