Schneeprofil

The sporty winter is far from over and is picking up speed again these days. The snow flurries are now moving to higher altitudes with steeper slopes on average and are hoping for a few more turns of fluffy powder, followed by sizzling firn and summer firn, before surviving the summer in a snow profile hole on the highest glaciers in the Western Alps in heat torpor. So it's time to sum up:

Every year at the end of the season, PowderGuide invites all authors, ConditionsReporters, testers, snowstormers, PowderAlerters - in other words, the large PG community - for a weekend in the mountains as a thank you. It's not just about socializing, but also about sharing and discussing, as well as reviewing the season with all topics related to freeriding and ski touring - and of course being out in the snow. On Saturday, it is a tradition to offer one or more workshops - this winter, PowderGuide was able to win over snow rummager Lukas Ruetz, Lorenzo Rieg and Fabiano Monti and Walter Steinkogler from ALPsolut. This time they were invited to the very cozy Stuibenhütte, beautifully situated below the Alpspitze.

There is now a wealth of popular scientific works on the internet that are relatively easy to understand. Finding these is usually the greater challenge. A collection that can be expanded at will:

In order to counteract the "I-only-understand-the-station" mentality when viewing snow profiles - whether in a snowflurry or on various avalanche warning service portals - we turn back to explanatory examples. As an introductory explanation, we recommend How to read and interpret a snow profile.

It is early winter 2017 and the Eastern Alps are once again experiencing a pronounced old snow problem in some areas. You can't put enough energy into preventing old snow problems, as avalanche accidents show. So we are taking prophylactic measures.

Depending on the area and altitude, there are already some melting crusts within the snow cover that have been created by rain events or warm air intrusions. Weak layers often develop around these. Why is this?

There have already been five avalanche fatalities in (South) Tyrol this season. Unfortunately, because where there is snow and mountains, there are also avalanches - no matter what time of year.

Digging snow profiles and recording them correctly requires a great deal of experience, starting with the question of site selection through to determining the layers. However, reading standard recorded profiles is less complicated than it may seem at first glance. Lukas Ruetz explains it below using an example from the Sellrain. The profile discussed, like many others, can be found in the LAWIS database of the Austrian avalanche warning services and all notations correspond to those used there. Other organizations sometimes use slightly different forms, but the basic principles and the symbols for the grain shape remain the same.

If you want to know something about the stability of the snow cover and would rather not test it by driving into it, you need alternatives. The basic principle of snow cover tests is similar to driving in: You hit it or otherwise provide a load and see what happens. Unlike driving in, you do this in a controlled environment so that you can actually have a look first and don't get buried straight away.

As already mentioned, the cat and mouse game with the Ski-Patrol has become more difficult – and the cat has actually won again. The spoilsports from the Ski Patrol are now hiding and waiting for hours for mice if they have to. Very annoying as I can no longer ski in an entire ski area and I particularly like the forest runs there. According to unofficial sources, a previously liberal area even wants to ban and strictly control everything off-piste from next season. In many places in Japan, the people in charge simply don't understand what we freeriders want?

The snowfall of the past few days has created a tense avalanche situation. At the end of the week, a warm front will bring very mild temperatures and rain up to high altitudes. At the weekend, the signs in the Eastern Alps are pointing to a northern thaw.