It is a good idea to follow a rule that those camping at altitude or where theres a possibly avalanche or an extreme snow dump overnight etc. Always have at hand a good sharp knife, so that if you need to exit in an emergency you can slice through the groundsheet and get out quickly. getting out of your sleeping bag may be more of a problem!
Repeating urban myths without any knowledge of the subject is what causes most of the fear and anxieties in the first place.
a, It takes three things to make an avalanche 1 An instability in the snow pack. 2 A slope steep enough for the slide to occur (30 degrees and above). 3 A trigger, nearly always the climber/skier involved. The instability you can do nothing about except dig a snow pit and find it, if you do find one don't camp there. Why would anyone camp on a 30 degree slope, that's a very steep slope? You could I suppose pitch below such a slope but just a quick glance at a map would tel you it was a bad place to pitch, so again why would you go there? As for the trigger, if by the time you'd put your tent up the slope hadn't avalanche'd it's not going to. It won't suddenly go in the night while your asleep, it's you moving around that's going to set it off.
b, If you did manage to get yourself avalanche'd in the middle of the night, no tent is going to hold the several tonnes of snow on top of it. You'd be buried, cutting yourself out of the tent isn't really going to help.
If you genuinely want to go winter camping but are worried about avalanches the best way to evaluate those fears is to take an avalanche awareness course, not listening to old wives tales.
