Snow report South-north routes, 04/10/2017

Snow condition

In Hemsedal, several locals told us that it looked much better further west. This is definitely the case, but there is little snow below the tree line here too. At the parking lot, there was about half a metre of snow at about 400 meters. A local in the sports store said that at this time of year there is usually two meters more in the valley. We had originally planned a different tour starting at just over 100 meters, which is hopeless...

Snow quality

It didn't freeze at night below about 700 meters. At the very bottom it was wet snow which was ok to ride, above that it was nasty crushed snow. Above 700 meters it was partly crust, partly dust on crust. Very small-scale changes in between. But it was fun and quite even to ride.

Beware of drift snow. On our tour it was never more than 5-10 cm and only smaller areas. However, we deliberately didn't go close to the ridge and there are higher peaks in the region, so warning level 2 of the Norwegian situation report was a good fit for me.

Overall impression

3 stars for the overall experience. There are 15 different tours within easy reach at the parking lot, very cool! Although it's the Easter vacations and practically all of Norway is on vacation, we only met two people today and there's supposed to be some precipitation tonight and tomorrow morning