Snow report Sölden, Ötztal, 06/12/2020

Snow condition

Even though it even snowed all the way down to Vent at 1900m the day before, the fresh snow unfortunately only brings you something above 2600m. Where there was nothing left before the snowfall, you still can't ski down. There was quite a lot of fresh snow: at 2500m it was about 25cm, at the top of the north face it might even have been 40-50 cm, and you could still ski down to about 2600m in the hollow next to the Latschbach. However, the terrain there is pretty rocky everywhere, but if the ground is meadowy and in more sheltered gullies, you can certainly get down even further.

Snow quality

The snow conditions were quite good for steep face skiing. There was no more powder, as it had already been capped despite little to no sun the day before, but the north/northeast face was already somewhat firned up and grippy when we left at 8:30 am. Where the wall slopes a little more to the east, it was even a little wet. Below the wall it was still rather hard, but still nice to ski.

The fresh snow from the previous days has often gone down as wet snow avalanches on steeper slopes. There were also many wet snow slides from rocky terrain. There were no slab avalanches to be seen, and an early descent is highly recommended as it can be dangerous if the descent is too late and the fresh snow is too wet.

Overall impression

Even though the hanging glacier on the large Ramolkogel has lost some of its mass compared to pictures from days gone by, it is still a beautiful north face that can also be descended well in suitable conditions. We had quite good downhill conditions after waiting an hour at the summit until it got a bit softer. Most of the ascent was fine too, but from halfway up the wall it was a bit tedious in places, as you had to break through the snow cover and then dig a trench knee to hip-deep. But it got better at the top.

Unfortunately, the steep face season in Tyrol is slowly coming to an end, but hopefully there might still be a bit of climbing left on the slightly higher north faces in Switzerland :)