Snow report Lech Valley, 03/04/2017

Snow condition

Overall, the amount of snow is relatively low due to the high temperatures of the last two weeks. On the south side, the mountains are partly bare up to 1600m above sea level and there is hardly any snow in the forest either (all exposures). For this reason, we also had to clear the last 100 vertical meters on the north side through the forest today. A few centimeters of fresh snow fell in the valleys from yesterday to today. Due to yesterday's strong winds, there was between 5 and 20 cm of fresh snow at 2000 meters above sea level.

Snow quality

The snow fell with a lot of wind influence and was therefore quite inhomogeneous. In windless regions, we encountered powdery and barely bound snow. In other areas, the snow was less easy to ski on. However, this lies on a well-frozen layer of harsh snow. The sun came out in the late morning today and immediately had a strong influence on the snow quality.

With a little restraint when planning the tour, the situation was quite good. The soaked snow cover froze again and seemed quite stable. The amount of fresh snow over the last few days was in the region of a few centimetres. On the surrounding higher mountains, however, this snow has been transported on a massive scale. We saw wet, loose snow sliding off the top of the snowpack when skiing down sunny slopes (see photo) and a smaller, self-triggered loose snow slide when skiing down steep terrain.

Overall impression

As we drove into the mountains this morning expecting bad weather, we were all the more pleased about the good weather and the fresh snow.