Snow report Vinschgau Valley, 12/16/2019

Snow condition

as announced yesterday, today a north-facing tour, in the upper vinschgau valley. start at about 1900m. snow depth absolutely sufficient. free choice of lines for ascent and descent possible without restrictions. only, larger streams cannot (yet) be crossed everywhere. in the summit area, also on the north side, quite blown off.

Snow quality

below approx. 2600m, today loose powder, not wind-capped. on the descent, however, it became a bit heavy. zero degree limit today at approx. 2200m. above 2600m almost everything was blown over and unpleasantly wind-capped in large areas.

the south tyrolean two was a bit too optimistic/low for our tour today. there is quite a lot of drift snow in all north-facing slopes. not only in the direct ridge area! close to the ground there is a layer that has been transformed to build up. two people who skied down before us probably triggered a larger snow slab remotely. this came off at approx. 2600m, expo-no, from rocky steep terrain, with a 40cm thick crack edge, over a length of 30m, and came off on the above-mentioned layer of crusted snow, over a length of approx. 150m, over the ascent track. on the south side, the snow cover seemed more stable to me yesterday.

Overall impression

the snow was partly much better than yesterday, but the visibility on the descent was much worse and the hurricane in the summit area, combined with the snow slab, clearly limited the possibilities in the area. therefore again only 2 stars.