Too dry and stony for the time of year

Snow condition

southwest to southeast up to 2000m is catastrophic. on the north side, a lot has been cleared out. There is actually no more powder snow that can be reached with reasonable effort. Even on a ski tour, only a few meters of soft snow are the most rewarding thing you can find. Ridges and ridges are free. Many descents and crossings in the Espace killy are not possible this year. Too many stones, too little snow. The Grand Motte glacier shows a lot of bare ice and in exposed places at 3200m there is not a bit of snow left. Wind and sun have eroded everything here.

Snow quality

Due to the clouds, it's only warming up slowly. It's mild but the wind is cold and makes the snow, which has been wet the previous days, hard and almost unrideable. The slopes are also very icy in places. A few centimetres of fresh snow have been blown away by the wind. It is very scattered in hollows and behind terrain forms in the lee. 1-2 cm maximum.

The risk of falling has increased significantly. The sunny cold spell is over and it has been much warmer for 2 days. Due to the lack of sunlight and cold wind, the softened snow cover is freezing together to form a hard icy snow surface, which can lead to dangerous passages in steep terrain. the Couloir des Pisteurs is no longer recommended and the couloirs above Tignes le Lac are also in tricky conditions. No avalanches have been observed if it remains warm, I would watch out for wet snow and gliding snow on crossings as the snow layer does not freeze completely overnight in the middle layers.

Overall impression

Unfortunately, the slopestyle final was canceled due to wind. So instead of watching, we had to ski on lousy snow. But as we all know, that trains the musculoskeletal system. I'm afraid spring will be very short here in the Isere valley... the glaciers are very thinly covered. In the Vanoise National Park around Mont Pourri and Grand Casse it looks similar, as I was told.