Hochblassen north gully with powder snow

Snow condition

For almost May you have nothing to complain about. in the ascent over the Hausberg the carrying over the meadow is a bit long. after about 1 hour from the valley station at 1100 m you can put on your seatbelt. in the descent it theoretically goes longer up to about 900m if you are smart and take the riders right slope back to the Hausbergbahn. from 1300m there is continuous snow. before that, especially on the road to the Hochalmbahn valley station, you have to carry smaller and larger pieces again and again. among other things because the path was cleared.

Snow quality

perfect firn on the east-facing descent of the Alpspitze from around 9 am. Powder snow in the fairways. From the steel rope onwards, the descent is also rewarding. Grieskarscharte north no more powder as there is now a lot of sun coming in. as a result, from early in the morning it is soft as butter and boggy in the afternoon. Lots of powder snow in the Hochblassenrinne. About 60 cm soft and loose, then it becomes a bit more compact but still soft. almost too much loose snow for a descent. The problem should now be solved, see text on the avalanche situation

On the east side of the Alpspitze, a wet snow avalanche is visibly snowed in again due to the few centimeters that were there on Thursday (from about 2000m). towards the Grieskarscharte there are also some larger slides from the steep terrain. In the Hochblassen Nordrinne, 1 person who was traveling alone beat us to it, so we waited until he was at the top and left. The wait outside of the shooting lane paid off - a massive loose snow avalanche took the entire gully with a huge bang and would inevitably have swept us up and over the rockfall, where the avalanche shot over like a waterfall and came to rest in the Grieskar. In the now defused ascent, we realized that it wasn't just loose snow, but a mixture of fresh drift snow packs from spindrift and wind lined the edges. The tracks of the first ascent were completely buried again and in the gully you still had to track in about 40 cm deep because there was still so much snow inside. In addition, the packs of drift snow and loose snow at the edges had not yet been released. we released these after every turn on the descent. in the end it was more sluff than drift snow. but the top 3 cm were deposits in brittle form and easily formed floes that took the loose snow with them. The logical conclusion: in couloirs on the ascent, it's better to wait one too many times before getting on, you can easily get hit.

Overall impression

Unfortunately very short and hardly worthwhile as a stand-alone tour as the approach is long and arduous.