Stefanie Höpperger

Penguin is an independent Swiss company that emphasises functionality without a lot of frills. In its merino items, it uses Nuyarn, an innovative yarn technology whose fibres give the yarn more volume and greater elasticity. The core of Nuyarn is nylon, which is particularly tear-resistant and elastic. The merino wool wraps around the nylon core. The result is a yarn construction that combines all the positive properties of synthetic fibres and merino.

Tour planning proved to be rather difficult last week, as an old snow problem in the terrain is not easily recognizable. This makes it all the more important to use your head when planning at home and choose a suitable tour carefully.

You often see that the lower snow layers are missing from profiles, but aren't these also important? Basically yes, but since you can't assess an entire slope with a profile, but "only" (and yet very much) locate the snow layers, snow forms, weak layers, etc., as well as observe fracture initiation and fracture propagation, you don't necessarily have to dig a three-metre-deep hole.

Powder was still to be found on shady slopes and flatter sunny slopes this week, while broken snow was already prevalent on steeper sunny slopes. Sleet deposits could also be observed again and again.

Snow crystals begin to change on their way from the cloud to the ground. Perhaps a layer of air is warmer and the crystal thaws slightly, or several crystals stick together to form large flakes. If it is windy, the fine branches of the crystals break off. Once they reach the ground, things don't calm down - that's when the changes really begin. For skiers, the decomposing and building transformation is crucial:

Despite the warmer temperatures in the fine weather phase, the snow surface on shady slopes remained mostly loose. On the other hand, slopes exposed to strong sunlight - especially at lower altitudes - became damp on the surface and a cover could form due to cooling.

This week, our newly acquired snow rummager repeats the confusion of symbols, abbreviations and numbers that can be found in a typical snow profile. If you know how, you can read all sorts of things from such a graphic and you don't always have to dig yourself to get an overview of the snow cover at a particular location. There's also a new profile from the Sellrain, so you can put your new knowledge into practice right away!