Early winter touring weekend in Sellrain

Snow condition

Just like in early winter. The 10 - 60 cm (depending on altitude) of cold fresh snow at the beginning of the weekend came with little wind and covered the scree desert treacherously. If, like us, you didn't know exactly where the old snow tongues were beforehand, you had to be extremely careful, you had to expect stone contact at any time, even in apparent hollows and depressions. I have little comparison this year, but I think the situation is better in the northern Alps.

Snow quality

Facing away from the sun and still fine powder snow down to the snow line on Monday (1600 in the northern sector). On the south side up to 2800 and higher it became crusty from Sunday to Monday - avoid the descent. on Monday there were smaller accumulations of drift snow in different expos with moderate winds

For the amount of fresh snow, the situation was quite relaxed at the weekend, with drifting snow only forming high up in the night to Monday. Sluff was to be observed. Lots of loose snow slides from the south, east and west. A crack triggered by a winter sports enthusiast was seen in the summit area around 3000 (extremely steep, N, probably Sunday), weak layer over sahara dust. Rime (Nigg effect?) mainly on summit ridges. From Monday moderate wind from different directions

Overall impression

Nice touring weekend with sharky conditions. Sellrain is only recommended for people with very good previous experience.