Snow report South-north routes, 04/09/2017

Snow condition

You can at least start some tours from the car. Yesterday we were able to ski down the eastern slope of Svarthetta as far as the parking lot. However, most tours have a carrying passage of at least half an hour at the bottom. We were out and about with locals yesterday and they were downright shocked by the snow conditions. Yesterday, when we drove to the car on an old avalanche, they said that normally there's still a meter of snow there in May... It's interesting that the wind has a huge influence on the snow conditions here, east-facing slopes have significantly more snow than west-facing slopes.

Snow quality

At best firn, but that's rather rare. As expected, the eastern slope of Svarthetta was very hard yesterday at six o'clock, but at least it was fairly even. On the south-facing tour to Nibbi we had quite good firn apart from the upper third. It was stormy at the top today, so there was ice and snow cover.

Stable. It hasn't snowed for a long time and had plus temperatures during the day and minus temperatures at night. Daytime warming doesn't play such a role here. Many Norwegians set off on a ski tour after a day on the slopes with the family.

Overall impression

The conditions were rather mediocre, but the experience was still great. The Norwegian tourers we met were super open-minded and hospitable. The drive to the tour parking lots on unpaved roads alone is an experience and finding the right parking lot is a challenge