Once upon a time, a bridge of high pressure over Central Europe provided stable mountain weather for days on end. Unfortunately, the wind didn't really want to play along, so the avalanche situation remained tense in many places, and annoyingly on a sunny weekend with fresh snow ...
Despite sunshine from early to late, temperatures did not rise too high as at least the Eastern Alps were in a slight north-easterly flow, which was thankfully produced by a low pressure system in the Mediterranean region. A few days earlier, this same low had caused snow chaos in some Balkan countries and parts of Italy. A village in the Apennines is now the new world record holder in the discipline of "most fresh snow within 24 hours" .
Thanks to the sun, the fresh snow slowly stabilized and thanks to the shade, the snow remained good on wind-protected northern slopes over the weekend, so that even in the much less snow-accustomed Eastern Alps, reasonably powdery activities were still possible in the last few days. A more reserved approach was the order of the day at the weekend, we had to work on Monday and on Wednesday a short wave trough disturbed the beautiful weather - so Tuesday remained! The WeatherBlog and two companions set off to explore a certain gully. At the parking lot, we quickly noticed another car whose occupants stood out a little from the rest of the touring skiers present in terms of average age and type of equipment (oldschool brand). After discreetly eyeing each other up (we: "Wow, they've all got two ice tools! " the others probably: "Has he just packed a tin of pickled fish? ") we went our respective ways. While we approached the start via an already slightly softened sunny slope, the other group trudged through deep floating snow and over unpleasant-looking rock slabs up an opposite saddle. At this point, I would like to point out once again the all-important energy balance, which is often the deciding factor between firn, powder or various types of broken snow, especially in spring: without sunlight, the snowpack cools down considerably towards the atmosphere, even in spring, and the corresponding temperature gradient in the snowpack (cold at the top, warm at the bottom) favors the build-up transformation. In the sun, on the other hand, a lot of energy is supplied to the snow cover and this is put into more or less superficial melting processes, which then means firn, hard snow or simply slush, depending on how cold it cools down at night.
With great freeski mountaineering skill, we were then able to overcome the 60-metre-high abseil point above our gully. Somehow, however, we didn't have enough skill to pull off the rope (we blame our Scandinavian colleague and his oil fish for this), so we were forced to complete the powdery gully without the additional weight of 120 meters of rope. In the evening, while we were thinking about who had to go back up there to get the rope and when, the WeatherBlog received some news that was as surprising as it was pleasing: our colleagues from the other car had climbed the same gully after us and had not only taken the rope with them, but had also somehow managed to identify us without us ever exchanging a word with each other. A big thank you to Heiko, Andi and the third of the handsome gentlemen, who unfortunately remained nameless!
May the strengthening high pressure over Scandinavia and Central Europe, supported by warm air advection on the front of an Atlantic trough, bring you beautiful tours over the next few days and may the strong northerly wind not disturb you too much. The Italian low is also still in the mix, so the sunshine in the north will not be as unclouded at the weekend as it has been recently. But there is potential for fresh snow on the southern slopes of the Alps.
