Snow report Tannheimer Valley, 03/04/2017

Snow condition

It was already clear at the Rohnenspitzbahn parking lot how warm it was yesterday. If this morning's snowfall had come down as rain, touring would have been a thing of the past, but luckily things turned out differently. Up to 1400m there is not enough snow even in the shady forest to get down properly. Forest tracks or pistes would be helpful, but from 1500 there is enough snow, although not much. You are only safe from stone contact in steep, shaded terrain. Today there was a good 5 cm of fresh snow, the southerly wind deposited some of it in the shaded areas, so there was more to be had there.

Snow quality

Up to 1500m you could feel that everything underneath was completely soaked. Then came the fresh snow from today. From 1600m it was super soft and dry, as there was enough snow in the snow, you could hardly get through to the hard surface. Only old avalanche cones were disturbing. Underneath, it quickly became damp to slushy.

A lot of snow was transported, so that a lot of sluff went down on the steep side. But below 2000m the amount was ok. On the west side, the wind was able to attack and form a cover, and a lot was done on the outside: Gaishorn, Ponten etc. Everything looked good. Everything looked good, with rising temperatures there will be some loose snow slides tomorrow.

Overall impression

Unexpected things often happen. After yesterday's temperatures, we started without great expectations. However, it snowed heavily in places on the ascent. The fresh snow wasn't just cosmetic, but also really helped on the descent. When the blue sky came out after 2 hours, we had a really good day with 400m of deep turns.