Snow report Tannheimer Valley, 02/18/2018

Snow condition

In my opinion, it was still above average on the tour despite the rain. There was plenty of snow even in the really dense forest. Only when you get close to the two peaks are there blown off and only slightly snow-covered areas.

Snow quality

Dust on crust. The first 400m of the descent on the Große Schlicke is pretty fine. About 5cm of fresh snow on a stable, even cover. Below that the top was broken, it was rideable but no longer. At the Schneidspitze the snow was also good at the top, but we had too little visibility to enjoy it.

Drift snow is a problem in small areas. On the ridge to the Schneidspitze, a piece of cornice only broke off by lightly poking it with a stick. When sliding down along the ridge, the snow always broke off, but it was only about 3cm. On the large slopes, the fresh snow was better connected to the layer below and it tended to blow out there. In steep terrain close to the ridge, especially in the northern sector, I can imagine that drift snow is easy to trigger.

Overall impression

Unfortunately not much visibility, as much visibility as on the ascent picture was the absolute exception. Otherwise a nice tour with nice descents in beautiful terrain and we also found some fun things to do in between ;-)