Snow report Stubai Valley, 04/17/2021

Snow condition

The descent into the valley is still possible without any problems, not only on the piste but also in the off-piste terrain. Further up in the ski area, almost all variants are skiable. Steeper slopes also have good snow conditions, although you still have to watch out for sharks on the Stubai Glacier. Some of these are only lightly covered with snow due to the very loose fresh snow.

Snow quality

The last snowfall was typical for the Stubai with almost no wind. As a result, there is a good 40cm of the finest powder snow. Today, however, you had to have a bit of luck and a good nose to find the powder snow in its best form. This is currently still the case on the north side, in sun-protected gullies. Wherever the sun stays a little longer, a cover has already formed, which is often not stable. In our gully, one side sloped slightly more to the north-west, where there was only broken snow. In the middle and on the other edge (north and north-east side), however, there was still the finest, deep powder snow.

There is little to no wind influence to be seen or felt in the snow cover until very high up. The fresh snow is still completely unbound and powdery on the shady side. Where there was more wind influence, you should watch out for drift snow. However, this is currently only the case on a small scale and in the high Alps. You should watch out for loose snow avalanches from sunny terrain during the course of the day. A possible old snow problem is more insidious. You should therefore continue to follow the avalanche situation report and the LWD blog closely. The cold-on-warm hazard pattern could worsen if there's a bound slab on top of the currently unbound fresh snow.

Overall impression

As almost everything in and around the ski area was tracked yesterday, today we chose a shady gully that is not necessarily in every touring guide. Even though it felt like there were 1000 hairpin bends, we were not disappointed and found perfect powder snow with a pleasant steepness in almost the entire gully. Definitely whets the appetite for steeper descents :)