Snow report Berchtesgaden Alps, 01/30/2026

Snow condition

Descents into the valley or generally descents in open terrain are only possible with a lot of contact with the enemy (in my case today frozen earth & meadow, leaves and stones). There is very little worthwhile terrain left. Today it was still quite ok due to the high proportion of meadows or flat slopes that had been run in like a piste or if you are desperate (like me!)... But there's not much at any altitude. Fortunately, it's at least been cold for a long time now, so you can be happy that there's still snow at all. The last two precipitation events have regrettably passed us by almost completely and have only brought a few centimetres. There is hardly anything on the steep and sunny or very rocky slopes.

Snow quality

Not so good overall. Dust on crust at the top. The harsch cover remains kind of tough at all altitudes, from the middle it's reasonably manageable broken harsch. Only in the last few meters does it get a bit softer. But nowhere more ice or only very hard.

Low avalanche danger overall. As has been the case all "season", the dangers of a lack of snow predominate.

Overall impression

Unfortunately, there was simply very little snow, we are crawling around new negative records all the time. On the other hand, the unfortunately brief sunshine above the massive inversion and the views today were really wonderful. The rest of the descent was a rather gloomy soup. On the other hand, including the bumps and interruptions, it was still a relatively long descent to such low altitudes. But we really need snow, otherwise it will be another lost winter... :(