Snow report Central Switzerland, 02/21/2014

Snow condition

15 centimeters of fluffy pow on a rock-hard base - that's how you can describe the snow conditions in Meiringen Hasliberg on Saturday.

Snow quality

The fresh snow was of the very best quality and had a good dusting. Unfortunately, the amount on many slopes was not enough to create a permanent floating state. Every now and then the skis made contact with the hard surface. But we found slopes where we were able to float down into the valley without resistance. In the afternoon, the snow on the south-facing slopes - and there are quite a few of them on the Hasliberg - turned into heavy cardboard. On slopes with a different orientation, we still found the very best snow at 2 pm. For all those who want to powder on Sunday: Sorry, the whole area is pretty much plowed over. It's just the weekend and vacation time...

SLF issues warning level 2. Because the fresh snow has fallen on a base as hard as a pickaxe, snow slabs on steeper slopes were very easy to release today. From the lift, we even observed a woman who was easily pulled along. Due to the rather small amount of fresh snow, the whole thing wasn't too bad. But if there had been more fresh snow today, I would have approached the whole thing very conservatively. It was both astonishing and frightening to see parents with 7-year-old children skiing down reasonably steep slopes where there were already some snow planks down. What's more, not even the parents were carrying a backpack on their backs. So no shovel, probe, etc. Irresponsible x 10....

Overall impression

A beautiful day with really good fresh snow. 10 centimeters more of it and it would have been five stars. But even so, it was great fun. Not least because, after a bit of searching, we found slopes with enough snow to float on.