Snow report Eastern saddle point, 03/26/2021

Snow condition

The snow conditions are still pretty good for the end of March. With the warm temperatures, however, it will quickly get worse. You can currently ski up to 50m before the end of the valley descent. In sunny spots on the forest trail, the snow conditions are rather poor and you should watch out for stone contact. Further up, the mountain pines are still well covered in snow. There is also snow in the trenches far below, we skied the Höttinger Graben quite far down and then walked along the forest path towards Umbrüggler Alm. Steeper slopes still have plenty of snow. However, all the fresh snow is also having a negative effect, some wet snow slides have come down and cleared the slopes.

Snow quality

Planned the tour in the hope of firn and was not disappointed. However, the snow cover is still relatively thin at the moment and you need a good hand with exposure, slope inclination and timing to get some good firn. The uppermost summit slope, on the east side above 2300m, still had some powder snow. From the Langer Sattel, on the south side below 2300m, the downhill conditions were pretty good at 9am. The snow cover was already nice and soft, but not too soft yet, so you didn't sink in too deep. So we were able to ski down to the Höttinger Alm on good firn snow. On the south-east side you can be a bit earlier, on the south side it was fine from 2300m down at 9am. On the south-west side, it takes even longer for the snow to clear. Generally speaking, it should be mentioned that the snow cover was consistently stable on the ascent with skins and on the descent. On foot, however, you would have fallen in deep. So at the moment you are most likely to find something like good firn on the steeper south side below 2100m (above that it was more likely to be wet, settled powder).

Even if the avalanche warning service is not yet explicitly pointing to a daily warming, a timely descent is definitely recommended, especially on the south side. In all sunny exposures, some large, wet loose snow avalanches can be seen, which reach considerable dimensions due to the large amounts of fresh snow and fill the trenches well. We left the south side today from 2300m at 9am, so you shouldn't be much later. This is just for orientation, I read a tour report from the Karwendel yesterday where someone didn't leave the south side until between 11 and 12 o'clock. That makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up... Even if it takes some effort to get up early, it's definitely good for safety. Take an extra can of MagicMan with you, then it won't be so difficult. What's more, the descent is much nicer on good firn than on boggy snow. In addition to the wet loose snow avalanches, there is unfortunately also a problem with old snow, approx. between 2000 and 2600m in the north-east to north-west sector. Even if there is still good powder snow in these exposures, I'm an old scaredy-cat and currently prefer to be a bit more cautious in this area.

Overall impression

Beautiful sunrise tour to the eastern Sattelspitze on the Nordkette! Although we started relatively early, we had a good feeling of safety on the tour. Thanks to good timing, we were also able to ski most of the descent in good, firm snow. It was great fun (even without a steep descent and powder snow), and hopefully the north-facing steep face season will come soon with more reliable snow conditions.