Snow report Zillertal Alps South, 06/27/2016

Snow condition

Even the biggest winter lover has to slowly admit that winter is slowly coming to an end. Snow throughout only from shortly before the Griesscharte, from about 2700m. Unfortunately, this means carrying skis for quite a long time on the ascent and descent However, there is still plenty of snow at the top of the glacier.

Snow quality

4 stars for snow quality at the end of June? Are you daft? The rating refers exclusively to the Hochfeiler north face. And there was actually still really good powder snow there. The wall was a dream: ascent in the ice-hard avalanche gully until shortly before the exit, then descent in fine powder snow. Compared to the end of May, when I had to "shiver" my way down the first few meters, this time the descent from the very top was outstanding.

Quite a lot of wet snow has already come down from the walls. Despite our very early start and the rather early departure (around 8 am), stones were already coming out of the rock faces. Wet snow avalanches are sure to occur as the day progresses, where nothing has come down yet.

Overall impression

This really was my personal end to the winter. With the descent of my personal favorite wall, which I can hardly imagine in better conditions, the ascent and descent unfortunately dragged on extremely and made me realize again that I have to do more for my condition in summer to be fitter next winter, thanks to Alex for the track work! If you're interested, you can find a short (jerky) summary of the tour here: https://vimeo.com/172716133