Snow report Stubai Valley, 01/30/2021

Snow condition

There is a lot of snow. The descent to the parking lot at the Mutterbergalm is possible without any problems. Also in the Schlick and on the Elfer it looked like you could ski down to the valley. After it had rained all the way up this week (according to some measuring stations up to ~1900/2000), it snowed down to the valley again last night.

Snow quality

There was a lot of wind. Especially above 2000 m. The snow quality was correspondingly good. Pressed powder could be found on all exposures, while ridges and exposed areas were blown away and hard. It was still blowing hard throughout the day. So much so that tracks from the previous run were partly blown over again. Below the Dresdner Hütte on the valley descent, we could see a slight improvement in the wind conditions and accordingly found somewhat looser snow.

To be judged very critically. Above the tree line, the issued 3-er should be treated as at least tense, if not as a winter sports 4-er. As already mentioned above, there is well-bonded drift snow everywhere and we were able to observe numerous avalanches (blasting, spontaneous and skier-triggered avalanches). Some of the avalanches triggered by explosions in particular were massive, with avalanche edges of up to one meter (only judged from a distance) and over entire slopes (see pictures).the avalanches shown in the pictures are only a fraction of those observed. The rather poor visibility made the assessment even more difficult and as it is supposed to continue snowing and the visibility will not improve in the next few days (also in view of the avalanche accidents in the Lizum and Kühtai), great caution should be exercised, especially above the tree line.

Overall impression

In the hope of escaping the rain further down and getting some sun today, we headed for the Stubai Glacier. As the lifts didn't open until 12 o'clock, the sun was more or less over and we realized from the very first gondola ride that restraint was the order of the day. So today it was flat ski routes or piste, which was still enough for some nice waving and good fun.
At this point, I would also like to praise the majority of the freeride community on the glacier today. Apart from a few exceptions, slopes over 30° were avoided. Due to the late start of operations, there was also little going on and no first-line stress. Where slopes >30° were skied, smaller avalanches were usually triggered (see pictures).

Photo credits go to alex_pg #tagerl