Snow report Valle D'Aosta, 01/17/2014

Snow condition

Very good snow conditions in general. In the lower forest, however, you have to be prepared for possible contact with the ground or wood and at the very top there are a few stones lurking under the thin layer of fresh snow.

Snow quality

Quite nice. Approx. 10 cm of fluffy fresh snow, fell with little wind, sometimes a little more than 10 cm. Unfortunately, that wasn't enough to make the old tracks disappear completely (see pictures). You can feel the old snow surface with almost every turn, which is quite variable, making skiing quite tricky.

According to the LLB, a 3. Well, I would rate the avalanche situation in the variant area of the ski resort as very relaxed: Little fresh snow, little wind, even on the highest ridge in the ski area at just under 2800 m (see picture), very well consolidated old snow cover. In the high alpine terrain far away from the pistes, things may look a little different. However, with the recent and possibly heavier snowfalls that have started today, the situation could also change quite quickly for the variants in the ski area.

Overall impression

Nice freeride morning, unfortunately with less snow than we had hoped for, until the weather from the south of Gran Paradiso started to push quite hard around noon (see picture) and snowfall set in. At the moment it's raining quite heavily even in Aosta at 600 m, so there could be a lot more snow on the mountains.