Snow report Zinal, 12/22/2020

Snow condition

No descent possible. At least not outside the artificial snow slope in Grimentz. There is very little snow in the area overall. Off-piste efforts at an altitude of 2900m are acknowledged with coreshots after 3m. The few centimetres on the north side are practically only on a very thin to non-existent base.

Snow quality

Apart from broken snow, the collection of snow types is complete. Above 2800, it's still soft and fresh for a few hours, but it's often already cardboardy, especially on the colder Grimentz side, as the wind has blown it away. Below that, the snow cover has been rained on tonight and is rather malad or still frozen and hard on the piste. Further down below the tree line, wet artificial snow is actually quite spring-like. I give it two stars because a few hours in the fresh snow were quite nice.

Yesterday we had a look at the snow cover on the north side at 2800m and did a bit of digging. It was mainly loose, packed snow on top of 20-30cm of old snow sugar. It was slowly starting to bond together. Nevertheless, the whole thing was too thin for us and we decided several times on No. Today, after the rain, exactly such packages were smeared off in large loose wet slides on many ridges (see pictures). In addition, cornices that had probably become too heavy in the rain or whose binding was no longer sufficient had come off. Further up above Grimentz, at 2900+, you can see some wind slabs that have been triggered. All in all a very complex scenario which underlines the three of the SLF.

Overall impression

Training technique in the initially deserted ski area, then fresh snow feeling like a five-year-old because we didn't know it was going to turn into rain. Today it's sunshine and white mountains between the piste puddles. That was also "ok" in the past.