Snow report Upper Black Forest, 02/02/2019

Snow condition

Start at approx. 750 m possible without any problems, approx. 40 cm of snow. The snow line is further down, between 300 and 500 meters. At 1000 m it's almost exactly one meter, at 1300 almost 1.5 m. Snow line tonight must have been between 1000 and 1300, from 1100 m the trees are increasingly covered in snow. 1a base for early February, pretty much exactly 4 Black Forest stars!

Snow quality

Quite a disaster, it was the most unpleasant descent for a long time. Right from the start, there was actually an unsightly crust of rain on top of 20 - 40 cm of soft powder snow from last week, which had frozen through due to the cooling during the night. On top of this rain crust, 2 - 10 cm of increasingly wet and dry fresh snow. Very nasty to ride. The second star is only awarded because there was no (noticeable) rain crust at 1300, but the precipitation probably came in the form of snow.

On our tour (no cornices) rather relaxed due to the rain yesterday. The fresh snow from last week has settled a little. A prominent weak layer exists on the snow profile (dug at approx. 1150 hm) at approx. 45 cm. Very homogeneous above that. The new rain crust could become a problem with the next snowfall, be careful! But today there was too little fresh snow for us to worry.

Overall impression

Beautiful solitary tour in the (at least at the top) sunny and wintry southern Black Forest. There is still snow relatively far down, so that even tours with a low starting point are reasonably possible and will hopefully remain so for a while. Due to the rain yesterday, the descent was unfortunately a disaster. Never mind, we'll have more tomorrow!