Snow report Northeastern Switzerland, 02/11/2015

Snow condition

Sufficient, but still far from enthusiastic. At least you can ski down into the valley at around 800m without any problems. In other years at the same time of year there was 1-2m more snow in Glarnerland than at the moment. Nevertheless, there is enough for pretty much all tours.

Snow quality

Almost without exception, you can still find well-set powder on shady slopes. However, the fact that this snow has now been exposed to temperature fluctuations and wind for more than a week is naturally noticeable. On shady steep slopes from around 35°, we found a lot of gritty snow, which was deposited on several very dubious layers.

Moderate, drift snow should be assessed with caution. In my opinion, there is a pronounced problem with old snow, especially on very steep north-facing slopes. When skiing in such terrain, you sometimes sink through and your poles can get completely rammed in. Thin, harder layers are embedded in the snow cover. On the surface, we moved some not entirely harmless amounts of this gritty snow. We were actually expecting a more stable foundation in Glarnerland. Where it is flatter, this problem is less pronounced. Southern slopes soften during the course of the day. Spring conditions prevail on these expos.

Overall impression

The expectations in terms of snow quality and snowpack structure could not quite be met. Nevertheless, we had a lot of fun today in what was still very good snow in places.