Snow report Sulden, Ortler, 04/29/2017

Snow condition

In general, there is little snow for this time of year in the southern Ortler massif around the Branca hut. During the precipitation period from Wednesday to Friday, however, there was a considerable amount of fresh snow. Up to 50cm of fresh snow fell at around 2000m above sea level. On the mountain, the amount of snow was even greater. However, the warm weekend has already caused the amount of snow to shrink considerably. It will soon only be possible to ski down to the parking lot on the hut access routes. Due to the warming and melting, the Val Forni, the hut access and southern slopes were largely free of snow up to around 3000m before the precipitation. Further up it looked quite good and at the weekend you could have been forgiven for thinking it was the height of winter. The glaciers also looked pretty well snowed in.

Snow quality

The quality of the snow on the descent varied greatly. As the fresh snow fell under the influence of strong winds, we encountered a wind-blown hardpack on wind-exposed slopes and where the sun had no strong influence. Otherwise, we skied some slopes in wind-pressed powder. However, due to the strong diurnal warming, powder snow was the predominant type of snow. Our hopes of skiing in powder or firn were not fulfilled and the downhill fun was limited.

The avalanche situation last weekend was the determining factor and due to the critical situation with a lot of fresh snow under the influence of wind and the strong daily warming, we were very cautious and flat on the way. During the precipitation period, spontaneous snow slabs and loose snow slides had already fallen on a large number of slopes at different altitudes and exposures. Due to the strong warming, additional wet snow slabs and wet loose snow avalanches could be seen on Saturday and especially on Sunday. On Sunday, a wet snow avalanche washed over the downhill track of another group in steep ski terrain relatively soon after their descent on another tour. All in all, we were surprised at the number of steep and avalanche-exposed tours that were completed on Sunday in the given situation.

Overall impression

Thanks to the excellent weather, we had a fantastic touring weekend. And even if we weren't able to climb all the peaks we wanted to, we were almost exclusively alone on our tours for two days and were able to leave our ascent and descent tracks on the glacier (which of course wasn't always easy on the ascent with the wind-pressed amounts of fresh snow). The Palon de la Mare was already climbed on Saturday, Piz Tresero on Sunday and Punta San Matteo was climbed on Sunday via a flatter ascent variant (on the normal ascent route, a tour group turned around in the avalanche-prone area).