Snow report Zauchensee, 01/04/2018

Snow condition

Very good snow conditions, better than before despite the rain around Christmas. The pillows are now really thick and you can hardly make it through. Only down to Flachauwinkel does it get thinner below 1400.

Snow quality

Surprisingly, it stayed cold enough all day that it has been snowing continuously since yesterday - even at the bottom. What's more, in contrast to the rest of the Northern Alps, there was little wind in Zauch apart from a brief foehn interlude. Only exposed ridges are windswept. The rest was at least 20 cm of loose powder on another 20 cm of settled powder. You never really felt the rain crust underneath.

What can you say... The LLB said a 4 for the afternoon, probably mainly due to the wind and the rain/heat. After both failed in Zauch, I don't think that was the case locally. We were rather defensive and not above the tree line, but we felt safe at all times - even when we climbed outside the area twice. Nothing but sluff.

Overall impression

Absolutely unexpected and solid 4 stars.
With hordes of freeriders in the area, we ploughed up everything that was reasonable until 14:00 and then got plenty of untracked terrain with short ascents. Fingers crossed that the snow line stays down tonight, then we'll have a really good base for everything that's to come.