Perfect deep snow days are relatively rare in most winters. This is especially true if you understand "perfect" to mean the ideal mix: enough fresh snow of good, or even better, very good quality. Of course, this also includes good weather and great, varied ski terrain that suits your own requirements and abilities as well as the current avalanche risk.
I. Rough overview planning: weather reports and weather models
The big advantage is that most memorable freeride days are usually announced over a longer period of time. Anyone who regularly follows a mountain weather report already knows in which regions good snow conditions can be expected. If you are not one of the privileged few who live in the immediate vicinity of the Alps and therefore only need to stick your nose out of the window, you will find some recommended mountain weather reports below:
Alpine-wide
Austria
Switzerland
Germany
France
- Italy: good offers for Southern Triol, otherwise we recommend the PG weather report Alps from ZAMG.
The weather reports are based on the analysis of various weather models. If you would like to oracle longer into the mysterious weather kitchen, there are various weather models (wetterzentrale.de or meteoblue.com) for long-term weather forecasts.
Many weather models are available on the Internet, and some of them provide very accurate results, but they are time-consuming to interpret and require a certain amount of basic meteorological knowledge. However, especially in combination with experience and local knowledge, they hold the most potential to outsmart everyone.
Searching for the ideal freeride location and perfect snow using a grid search
In order to recognize the perfect freeride days early on and to prepare for them sensibly, a research system has proven itself that is similar to Werner Munter's well-known 3x3 avalanche assessment system and that follows the principle of a grid search: in the first step, I search on a large scale for the regions that are suspicious of new snow and at the same time can be reached in a reasonable amount of time, and in the following preparation steps, I narrow down the favorites coming into the selection by gathering more and more detailed information - until the spot of choice is found at the end.
Three crucial ingredients for the ultimate powder day
The three decisive prerequisites for good freeriding: (1) conditions (= snow, weather and avalanche situation), (2) the terrain (ski resort or ski touring destination), (3) the freeriders involved (know-how, skiing technique, fitness). In the first step, these factors serve to roughly distinguish those areas with good conditions from those with unfavorable conditions.
1st ingredient - The conditions: Snow, weather, avalanches
The snow is the decisive criterion for sensible freeriding. For this reason, it is the first decisive factor. In which regions or locations can I expect fresh snow? And where is the current snow situation such that I can make use of the fresh powder snow?
1.1 Fresh snow
PowderGuide - Fresh snow forecast | forecast value
Fresh snow maps, e.g. from the SLF | measured values
.e.g. from the SLF | measured values / actual value
Avalanche situation reports| actual & forecast value
measured values from measuring stations (see the websites of the avalanche warning services) | actual value (total snow cover)
1.2 Weather
Freeriding is only fun when visibility is good, everyone knows that. Consequently, I either need good weather or an area that offers good visibility even when it's snowing, e.g. a low-lying area with forest and where the forest is also legal to ski in. The mountain weather forecast is highly likely to tell me what the weather and therefore visibility conditions will be like in a region.
PG mountain weather report, for all regions (ZAMG)
- Automatically calculated resort forecasts with varying forecast quality Bergfexor snow-forecast.com
1.3 Avalanche danger - avalanche situation report
But what use is the best weather and excellent snow if the avalanche risk is too high? Very little! The old adage also applies here: less can be more. So if in doubt, it's better to go to a region where it has snowed less and the avalanche situation is less tense. To put it bluntly: it's better to have 20 cm of powder under your skis than 80 cm and closed lifts from the window of your accommodation.
2nd ingredient: the terrain
Which area should you consider? The greater the offer, the greater the choice, the more difficult it is to decide. In some regions of the Northern Alps, there are so many ski areas that there is a suitable area for almost all conditions, provided you know how to search. One way to do this is to use compendiums such as the DSV or ADAC ski atlases (also available online) or platforms such as Bergfex, which list almost all areas, at least in the German-speaking area. However, the further away you get from the centers of rösti and yeast dumplings, the more exotic the spots become and the more time-consuming it is to find information. You can usually find out quite quickly and easily where there are larger ski resorts, for example via one of the portals mentioned. It's a good thing that they don't publish all the small but nice and sometimes really secret spots.
The major winter sports portals now offer a simple online map for most regions, which you can use to roughly assess the terrain (based on Google Maps or similar maps). Google Maps offers the advantage that you can switch between the terrain and satellite view. The tourism provider Outdooractive offers the service in its winter map view that almost all lifts are marked, which makes it even easier to virtually explore new areas and find out whether the terrain is suitable for the current avalanche situation.
Provider of free digital map tools
Switzerland (and Liechtenstein): Federal Office of Topography or Swiss Alpine Club
Germany: Bavaria viewer at Vermessung.bayern.de or geodaten.bayern.de
Austria: Geodata portal of the Austrian federal states geoland.at offers large-format maps and additional aerial images. The Tyrolean Spatial Information System (Tiris) offers very good maps, aerial images and special information for winter sports enthusiasts such as slope and exposure maps.
Italy: Portale Cartografico Nazionale (requires free plug-in; only in Italian and Spanish)
France: IGN (Institut Geographique National)(partly in German)
Slovenia: Geodetski institut Slovenije (partly in English)
3rd ingredient: The participants
Choosing the right partners is just as important for a successful freeride trip as the weather and snow conditions. In this respect, this point is not a third priority, but of equal importance to the choice of terrain. The big advantage of the human factor is that it is up to you to decide which partners you take with you to the mountain and with which of your esteemed contemporaries you prefer to go to the sauna or for a coffee.
Specifically, it's about the crucial question of which freeride friends you want to go out with because you trust their skills (riding technique, avalanche know-how, avalanche rescue and general reliability).
Once you have a good mix of conditions, terrain and people in mind, the planning fun starts all over again by zooming in one step closer.
II. Detailed planning
The rough selection of the region should already have been made, now it's time to find a particularly suitable area and at the same time find the ideal spot that suits your individual requirements.
2.1 Conditions - snow and weather conditions, avalanche danger
The interesting regions have been found. Now let's take a look at where the snow holes are located. In many weather conditions, the differences within a region can be astonishingly large. It's good if there is a dense network of automatic or even observer measuring stations. Switzerland really is a model country when it comes to snow recording, but in Germany and Austria, too, you can usually quickly find links to the automatic measuring stations on the avalanche warning service websites and therefore know roughly where it might have snowed and how much. Another, more traditional source of information is the ski resorts. However, their (new) snow depths communicated on the web are often very unreliable and not very credible.
As the information policies of many resorts differ greatly, you should only rely on the information provided by those resorts whose quality of information you know from experience. In Switzerland, the fresh snow values are usually measured rather conservatively, which means that 20 cm of fresh snow in an area should ensure decent conditions in most areas - provided the old snow base is soft.
Measuring stations
Switzerland : slf.ch
Austria: lawine.at
Germany (Bavaria): lawinenwarndienst-bayern.de
France: Meteogroup
South Tyrol: Hydrographic Office of Bolzano
A tip for ski tours in Switzerland: snowpack stability maps or the results of snowpack surveys.
If you now have a tempting area in mind, you need to check the avalanche report and the weather forecast for this area for the period of the planned trip.
For many regions, there are very detailed regional forecasts, e.g. regional avalanche reports, which usually also contain a concise but very reliable weather and snow forecast. It is also worth browsing the websites of the respective avalanche warning services, as you can usually find further forecasting tools and values from automatic measuring stations.
Avalanche reports
Regional weather reports
Chamonix Meteo | South Tyrol weather etc.
III. We come to the final stage - tattattaata: the decision is near
By now you've gathered a lot of valuable information, but you still don't quite believe that abstract numerical values are the key to freeride happiness?
Are there any other options?
A friend of ours, who was feared for his meticulous powder research, often called the ticket office ladies at the ski resorts every few hours to confirm the current snowfall and, in particular, which lifts were closed. Naturally, he also always wanted to know which lifts would open tomorrow as safely as possible. This system can work if you have a lot of time, but only if not too many people use it: Imagine 1500 freeriders calling the lift ticket office in Engelberg over several days; that doesn't work permanently.
Interactive ski resort maps
Almost all ski resorts now offer the service of interactive panoramic maps, allowing you to see at any time which lifts are operating and which are closed due to bad weather or avalanche danger. If, for example, you know that the Gemsstockbahn in Andermatt is not running today, but it is announced that it is very likely to open tomorrow, you can assume that there is really nothing to do there today, but that tomorrow will be quite snowy.
Forums and blogs
Another good way to get information are various freeriders' blogs (as long as they are updated daily and mention the respective areas) and forums (PowderGuide-Forum, Freeskiers.net or downdays.eu) or Facebook or Google+ where many winter sports enthusiasts document their experiences. Another useful service is the Conditions-Report. Here too, of course, the topicality of the information provided is crucial.
Finally, anyone who has ploughed through this long text will have noticed that choosing a suitable freeride spot is not a witchcraft skill, but a kind of freeriding craft that is reasonably easy to learn. While at the beginning there is still the danger of losing a lot of time researching in the vastness and depths of the internet, most freeriders develop their own research procedure within a short time. And then, in addition to this powder grid search system, there is of course also the good old surprise principle: ride at random and take the snow you find there ...
Werner Munter came up with the apt saying: "If you plan better, you'll be more wrong!" Because in the mountains, things can actually turn out differently than predicted. And then, after the perfect but ultimately unsuccessful search, a new challenge appears: making a great day out of the mediocre conditions.
Good luck with your spot search and happy turns
The PG crew