Snow report Fletschhorn, 06/13/2021

Snow condition

Fletschhorn north face: The snow conditions are definitely good for the time of year. You can get to Rossbodenstafel at 1900m by car and ski down over snow fields in the stream bed up to 5 minutes before the car. On the ascent, it can make sense to walk a little longer on the snow-free moraine and ascend a little later. In the wall itself, the lower third is pretty much cleared of avalanches, there are some more or less deep avalanche gullies. Although there is snow throughout, the fun is limited in this part. In the uppermost part of the wall there is only 15-20cm of snow on bare ice. The ascent can be done well without belaying (depending on your personal feeling of safety), but you have to be a little careful on the descent in the uppermost meters. Turtmanntal/Brunegghorn: Here too there is still a relatively large amount of snow for the time of year. You can skin up to approx. 2300m and then ski all the way up to the glaciers (gully west of Gässi). However, this will not be possible for long, as the snow cover is still thick, but in places already well washed out. Very good snow conditions at the top of the glacier. The Brunegghorn north face also still has snow, but in the uppermost part there is only about 30cm on ice (but relatively compact snow). The Bishorn north-east face already looks very rocky, and there is bare ice and rock under the seracs. People have descended the wall, quite riders right through the rocky terrain. But that won't last much longer. Our actual main goal, the Weisshorn east face, unfortunately doesn't have enough snow at the bottom either (there is a very deep avalanche gully in the lowest narrow section).

Snow quality

As expected, the conditions on the steep faces were rather crunchy. The top part of the Fletschhorn north face (11.06.) was still powdery snow (but not much on ice), then it changed to hard snow, where the top 2cm were a bit softened (departure at 8:45 am from 3900m), in the lowest third then hard to slightly softened avalanche chutes. If you stand well on your skis and have well sharpened edges, you can definitely ski well. But there are certainly better conditions. Below the bivouac, wet snow that turns into summer snow below approx. 2500 m. On the north face of the Brunnegghorn at 9 am (13.06.), despite relatively high temperatures, very hard snow conditions, the wind prevented it from becoming softer. The conditions on the glacier were still hard at around 10 a.m. at the top, but further down it became better and better firn. Nice to ski all the way down.

The danger of falling due to the hard/icy conditions is definitely the main danger at the moment. Apart from that, you should watch out for cornices and be aware of the risk of collapsing when the snow cover is undercut in stream beds. Although the crevasses are largely still well closed, the snow bridges are slowly becoming softer and thinner with the warm temperatures. You should also take into account the daily warming, not only in terms of wet snow slides from steep, rocky terrain, but also falling rocks and ice.

Overall impression

Once again we had 4 beautiful days in Valais, with 2 steep wall descents, nice overnight stays in the Zen bivouac box and with the tent on the Brunnegg glacier. Even if the conditions didn't allow us to ski the Weisshorn east face under acceptable risk conditions, there are also some other nice (steep) descents in Valais. And when you see the Fletschhorn north face from the Simplon Pass after climbing it, the wall looks mighty :)