Snow report Briancon, 03/24/2018

Snow condition

There is a lot of snow around Briancon. The skis are strapped on in the morning at the Terre Rouge parking lot (1470m) and unstrapped again at the same altitude in the afternoon. And at the end of March!

Snow quality

At higher altitudes, from 2100m upwards, the wind has been up to mischief. During the ascent via the ranvin de Chabrelle, the entire north side of the Crete des Granges is full of slabs (picture 2) that are less than a week old. There are two weak layers at a depth of 50cm and approx. 120cm. We must have seen a total of twenty slabs that day. After descending eastwards from the summit of the Crete de la Lause in snow transformed by the sun (photo 3), you have a good view of two slabs on the west side of the Crete de Petit Peygu (photo 4, break-off edge near the ridge). After climbing back up to the Crete de la Lause, we find great powder in the forest facing north.

Above 2100m, snow slabs came down from steep slopes of 35 degrees and above in all directions. Despite the sunshine, there were no loose snow avalanches on this day. It is to be expected that some more snow may come down in the coming day if it continues to warm up.

Overall impression

This was the first powder of the season. Despite the scary avalanche situation, it was a great sunny day.