Tirol

The first wild river national park has just been established in Albania. Tyrol, on the other hand, continues to rely on hydropower. It may be renewable, but it is not environmentally friendly. Anne from WET Tirol explained to us why this is the case and why it is worth taking to the streets now to oppose the expansion of the Kaunertal power plant.

In this rummage, we take a closer look at the so-called Arlberg effect and its impact on avalanche danger. As this effect does not only occur on the Arlberg, we refer to it more generally as the "effect of off-piste descents".

Moonlight tours, full moon hikes, night ski tours, night tobogganing as well as sunrise and twilight tours - the range of night-time events is huge. For many people, the day doesn't seem long enough, so the night literally turns into day. What may be a special experience for winter sports enthusiasts is unfortunately detrimental to many wild animals.

Due to the turbulent weather, the thin snow cover and fluctuating temperatures, we are moving from one avalanche problem to the next. Starting with an early winter old snow problem, we have recently been dealing with wild snow as a weak layer through to a very disruptive drift snow problem.

As a skier, I realize that snowboarders always have a special approach. Their flow and style are different, they glide or float along and it looks as if they can sometimes let themselves go completely - just let go. I watch this with admiration and since the advent of splitboards, you don't have to feel so sorry for them in their other movements. So today we are concentrating on snowboard films.

At last. The time has come. Ullr sends us a traffic jam where it doesn't rain heavily, it doesn't warm up immediately, or the Dutch and Piefkes invade the promised land of Tyrol. (Because they're more likely to go to Switzerland this time).

Not far from Innsbruck, the Arztal above the village of Ellbögen is the starting point for some interesting tours. We would like to introduce you to two tours that allow you to ski down beautiful, north-facing slopes without being too technically demanding.

It's that time of year again: the mountains are covered in snow, you slowly need a sweater and jacket in the valley again, the season and group ski passes justify the latest price increases, the first turns on the glaciers, PowderGuide starts the season. We're not quite in regular operation yet, but are gliding step by step towards winter as usual.

The editorial contributions have already slowly gone into summer hibernation over the last few weeks, and now the PG weather service is following suit. On May 20, we will switch off "the weather" for this season. Anyone who is still skiing can of course continue to post ConditionsReports! We are just as happy to receive alpine tour reports as we are summer snow sliding!

The omniscient algorithm also keeps offering me Jan Böhmermann. In his latest piece of satirical investigative journalism, he exposes the ignorance and corruption of the Tyrolean cable car industry, elegantly drawing analogies of failure in the event of a disaster, from the gondola fire in Kaprun to the Corona Cluster (I & II) in Ischgl.

Rudi Mair from the LWD Tyrol is working as an avalanche forecaster for the 31st winter this year. The eloquent "avalanche expert", who is also well known in the less snow-loving part of society, talks about the development of the Tyrolean avalanche warning service, the biggest innovations of the last thirty years and whether he would return to his professional origins in the Antarctic in retirement.

Roughly speaking, there is now an accident-prone old snow problem in Tyrol, especially north of the Inn, as the weaker snowfall means that there is now a perfect slab above the weak layers. Further south, however, the weak layers have not disappeared, but there are far fewer places where slab avalanches can be triggered due to the thicker layers.