Snow report Upper Valais, 12/15/2018

Snow condition

You can start directly from the parking lot in Rothwald at 1750m next to the tugboat and run on a very variable but closed snow cover. There is enough snow in the forest up to approx. 1900, the last few meters to the parking lot there is not enough snow in the forest to ski down.

Snow quality

At the top of the Mäderlickä at almost 2700 meters, the wind has raged mightily. We trudge up the last few meters on foot due to the lack of crampons and the first few meters of descent are certainly no fun either - the best turns can definitely be made from the upper timberline up to 1900. Here, the storm from last week has left the snow cover largely alone. In tree aisles and exposures with wind influence, you suddenly go from powder to hard, icy, frozen snow and every turn is audibly indistinguishable from an icy piste.

I feel a little queasy on a 2 with perfect visibility all day. There's wind-blown drift snow everywhere, so we stay away from steep north-facing slopes. But the rest is fine without any worries! We didn't see any spontaneous avalanches or slides during the whole day - even when we had a view of the Simplon.

Overall impression

If your nose leads you to exactly the right patch of snow between the right trees in the so-called 'Little Canada' Rothwald forest, then you can enjoy the fantastic early winter treeskiing conditions for two or three turns. After 4 turns at the latest, the snow scratches the edge more than we would like as freeriders and we fall back down to earth. The next time it snows, hopefully with less storm than last weekend, I'll be back!