Snow report Obertauern, 04/30/2017

Snow condition

We started today at around 1300 m. The tour was mainly in the north-east sector. In the early morning, it was still possible to ascend without any problems. On the descent later in the morning, the amount of snow on the last few meters on forest paths became quite scarce due to the sunlight. We will have to walk a bit more in the near future. All in all, it was still enough. Even at the start at 7 a.m., the snow on the east side was not constantly frozen. As the altitude increased, the wind picked up and there was a wind cover and repeatedly frozen sections. The cover was not particularly thick.

Snow quality

Unfortunately, the wind was quite strong as the altitude increased and clouds kept appearing in front of the sun. At some point we had to start the descent. In the alpine terrain, there was a mixture of wind cover and crushed snow. In sheltered areas in the forest, there was still a lot of powder snow and at lower altitudes the snow was quite wet. Unfortunately, it wasn't particularly cold during the night and today's weather didn't provide firn conditions either. Too bad.

Quite relaxed on our moderate tour. We couldn't see any activity. Due to the rather modest snow conditions, there have hardly been any major wet snow avalanches recently. There is very little snow in the classic avalanche zones. Start early and end your activities just as early. Classic spring conditions!

Overall impression

Unfortunately, there was no firn. The foehn wall also repeatedly enveloped our destination summit, so we had to reschedule the tour. At least it was not very busy today. Outlook: hope for clear and colder nights or tackle much higher destinations.