Neuschnee

Last weekend was probably an absolute early winter highlight for many freeriders. Saturday (4.12.) was sunny and cold across the board – and a bit of fresh snow on a soft base made for excellent conditions. At around 2000 m near Innsbruck, it was minus 16° C on Saturday and even during the extra speedy ascent, fingers and toes didn't really want to thaw out. The descent was of course more than worth the effort, which is why we were back in the same area on Sunday. But in completely different conditions: A few layers of clothing already fell off during the first short ascent in the morning. The thermometer confirmed our sweating, at -4° it was a whole 12° warmer in the same place than the day before.

The season is still young, but a lot has already happened in terms of weather and, above all, snow in the not-yet-quite-winter. Motivated powder fans opened many a valley run at the end of October after a friendly combination of low pressure areas north and south of the Alps left up to half a meter of fresh snow in places. Subsequently, a low pressure system in Italy caused südstau and a slowly growing base on the main ridge, while in the north almost everything was swallowed up again by the voracious Föhn.

There are quite a few people who claim they can smell snow. Whether it really is the Arctic cold air that they can smell or whether Father Frost has lit a scented candle - who knows. What is certain is that something is brewing in the north and when it reaches the Alps, we will all be drowning in snow chaos. At least that's what the weather warnings in all the media want.