Snow report Arlberg, 12/20/2020

Snow condition

Very difficult to assess. On the descent, I didn't have any stone contact with a careful line choice. My wife was swearing at every second turn. So good is different. A lot has melted since last week. The south-facing slopes in particular are heavily snowed out up to around 1700m. Above that there's only a thin layer of snow. The north side is not good either. Handbrake remains closed in any case, descents down to the valley...phew. I wouldn't do that at the moment. A couple went from the Maroiköpfe to Langen. There wasn't enough snow for me.

Snow quality

Where there is no sun, the snow is still quite good. It's a bit difficult but definitely fun, and the runs are hard to find. The mountain is very busy. Today I saw about 30-40 people on the way to Albona.

No snow for a week, the danger pattern is well known. In itself, you have to be very careful like everywhere else. I never have a good feeling about old snow, knowing that someone died on site this week because of it makes you more cautious than ever. It's interesting that half of the Albona North Face has slid down. Several small slides down to the bottom. The slope is almost empty. 50m away you can see the start of the avalanche. From today's perspective, it's incomprehensible to me that we were on flat terrain +-30 degrees with lots of tracks. We had a good feeling. You can see signs of instability in the snow in many places.

Overall impression

I was just interested to see how the Arlberg has changed today. Last week Eldorado with clear signs and signals, one week later still no big surprises. You can clearly see the signs.

Nevertheless, you can still have a good time there. But there will be other times for nice big projects.