Snow report Piedmont, 05/02/2015

Snow condition

Here, too, the winter was only moderate. The snow in the valley disappeared relatively early. On Saturday we had to carry the skis up to about 2100m. From then on it went well and from 2500m there is still plenty of snow. Due to the warmth and the rain, many wet snow avalanches have occurred in the last few days, which has not helped to improve the situation.

Snow quality

On Friday it had rained up to over 2500m and stormed heavily further up. Even overnight, it was never colder than 5-6°C at 2000m. The snow quality was correspondingly modest. Above 2700m, dust on breakable crust, including various types of braking slush with partial crust. If it freezes properly overnight, it should get better again.

Uiuiui. Not without it. Due to the high temperatures, the snow cover could only freeze poorly on the surface. Under the flabby crust, it was completely soaked far up. Accordingly, the wet snow avalanches came early, especially on Saturday. On top of that, there were snow packs that were easy to trigger. After a Saturday with bad timing and a borderline tour, we preferred to do a tour on the closed pistes in Sestriere on Sunday.

Overall impression

It was nice, even if the conditions were really tense due to the heat. We observed two avalanches triggered by skiers and a large number of self-triggered avalanches. The area offers a lot of potential in better conditions. Unfortunately, I don't have many photos at the moment.