Wallis

After the last alarm was rather disappointing and it was also quite warm, Ullr finally wants to do us some good and is sending snow again; lots of snow...

The meteorologist (and Wikipedia; forgive me) defines weather as: "The weather is the weather or is the weather conditions in a certain period of time (from several days to a season) related to a certain area".

A look at the map of fatal avalanche accidents in the Swiss Alps over the last 20 years shows that a particularly high number of fatal accidents occurred in Valais and Graubünden (Fig. 1). What is the reason for this increase in accidents? Is touring activity higher in these areas, resulting in more avalanche accidents? Or are there other reasons for the increased risk of avalanche accidents in these regions?

The Schwarztor is not one of the great classics in Zermatt for nothing. After a short but impressive ascent, you reach the Schwarztor, which provides a passage northwards between Breithorn and Pollux to the Schwarzgletscher and the descent on the same. This is certainly not the most challenging descent in the area, but the landscape experience and, above all, the ratio of ascent to descent altitude meters are among the best.

Splitboard tours are great experiences. Compared to the ascent with snowshoes, it is as easy as a feather and you don't have to make any compromises on the descent. However, the requirements differ significantly from ski tours, as flat sections are still a lot of fun on the descent and, depending on the conditions and equipment, you may have a little more trouble on the ascent than on skis. Overall, however, technical development has made a huge leap in recent years and splitboarding has become a serious alternative to ski touring.

The time has finally come! The saga continues. I hope George Lucas forgives me for my entry and doesn't sue me. And no, I can't tell you if you can see Luke Skywalker's hand reaching for R2D2 in the trailer for "Star Wars - The Force Awakens", but I can tell you where it's snowing. That's what I'm here for and what we've all been waiting for.

The final FWQ competition in Switzerland for this year took place on March 13-14th 2015 in the charming village of Nendaz, surrounded by the impressive mountains of the valais. When it comes to FWQs in the western part of the alps, Nico Goez is our rider on site. Here is his short wrap of one of the major 4* FWQ events in the alps.

Great atmosphere, really nice nature and mountains, really cool people around, nice snow conditions and mild, sunny weather made the "First Track Freeride" contest an excellent experience again ...

Ahoy you powder pirates. Ullr has promised loot and now the dump is appearing in the telescopes. After the rain is before the snow. It has already started to snow, or rather to rain below 1600 to 2000 m, and will continue to snow until Tuesday night or early Tuesday morning, with the snow line dropping and it will also snow again at usable altitudes. There will be a westerly flow across the entire northern slope of the Alps, but the largest amounts will come from the Lower Valais to the French Hautes Alpes.

Chef Ullr has realized that powder-hungry people in the northwest of the Alps have only been served lousy food for a while now and is trying to change that: by preparing a delicious northwest current for you and sprucing up the run-down northern Alps, just like his colleagues on TV do with the restaurants. But first there's something quick for in between, a powder snack so to speak.

Some classics are well-worn tours that offer nothing more than a prestigious summit. Others are not important summits at all, but offer everything you need for a beautiful tour and have therefore rightly become classics.

Well, it won't be quite that extreme, but Ullr is finally flexing its muscles in the north this winter and is guaranteed to lure most freeriders to the Alps. This alert is valid until Saturday and then theoretically part two ("The two dumps") should follow from Saturday to Monday, depending on marginal lows, for which it is not yet clear whether they will come at all.