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Innsbruck & Tirol 2020/21 Snow

 Poster: A snowHead
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Time to get this show on the road again!

There's been a fair few snowfalls on the peaks through October, and the young guns have been getting pretty damn sendy already, but Stubai was still looking a bit too sharky to tempt me up 'til last Sunday. Probably another 20-30cm had fallen over the previous two days, with sunday dawning bright and blue.

Apparently beforehand the glacier had been waaaay quieter than usual, but the beautiful weather brought a few others out to play out too, and the road up plus car park were pretty busy. There were two queues (made with metal barriers) for the gondola to help maintain some social distancing, which kinda worked - most groups probably had around a metre of distance between them and those behind. The wait wasn't too bad either, maybe 10-15 minutes, but it did mean we didn't get up until around 10am.

Obviously by then the main lift-accessed lines were tracked out (with plenty of sharks poking through!), so Menno and I went for a little walk to find something nicer for my (he had already been a couple of times) first turns of the winter.

In the end we skinned up under one of the still-closed chairlifts on the Dauernferner side, then up behind the peak to access a nice long and still untracked bowl. Only about 600m vert up, but at 3000m and after spending most of the summer kayaking in the valleys my legs were definitely feeling a little weak afterwards (forgetting my water bottle probably didn't help either).





Menno dropped first:



The sun had affected it a bit, but still pretty damn nice snow for literally my first turns of the season!





Cruising back along the piste after this absolute spectacle revealed itself - cue much stopping and staring by everyone around!



Maybe you can just about make out our tracks in the central bowl:



We later cruised a few pistes, then skinned up the Fernau side (not yet open) for some more mellow powder skipping.

Pistes generally in pretty good condition, maybe a littler firm lower down towards the midstation, but good coverage.

Regarding social distancing measures, there were no capacity restrictions on the lifts. In the cable car most groups seemed to try to leave a few seats free between other groups, and everyone wore facemasks in both the queue and inside. Things were a little more lax on chairlifts: I'd guess around 90% of people wore facemasks in the queues, and probably fewer on the actual lift (at least when seated with only their own group).
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Looks good Very Happy
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Fantasic!!
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Wow, picture 6

The ski gods are for real!
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@clarky999, Nice one, lucky guys.
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Maybe stick a health warning on those pics if people have to STAY HOME this Winter: "VIEWING THE FOLLOWING PICTURES FROM THE CONFINES OF YOUR HOME IS LIKELY TO DAMAGE YOUR MENTAL HEALTH!". Laughing
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jellylegs wrote:
Wow, picture 6


Was wondering how that effect was created - Looks like a reflection of the photographers eye.

There was a short piece about Stubai on Austrian TV last night showing very little social distancing or people wearing masks.
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DB wrote:
jellylegs wrote:
Wow, picture 6


Was wondering how that effect was created -


I was thinking it was something like a Fraunhoffer ring (sp?) if I remember correctly from schooldays!
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Great to see someone skiing. Could actually be a great year for anyone lucky enough to live in the mountains as opposed to dribbling from abroad like the rest of us.
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DCG wrote:
DB wrote:
jellylegs wrote:
Wow, picture 6


Was wondering how that effect was created -


I was thinking it was something like a Fraunhoffer ring (sp?) if I remember correctly from schooldays!


Sun dog: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_dog
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I took this photo to show today’s conditions at Stubai before the announcement that they would shut the lifts on Tuesday (I should’ve taken one a bit earlier, before we lost the sun from the other side, but I forgot).



I think there was a dusting a couple of days ago, following heavier snow earlier in the week. Coverage was good, especially as it’s only October, and skiing to the mid station was no problem at all, although it looked a bit brown below that. Off-piste was firm, and hard work on my skinny piste skis, but not too bad and preferable to the piste in places.

Weather was warm and sunny, not too crowded, and not a bad day out for the €484 it cost me rolling eyes
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
Not really been updating this, I think as we're all aware that anyone based outside Austria can't realistically get here. This is not a gloating post, quite the opposite in fact.

You may be aware that the northern Alps, including Tirol, has had quite a bit of snow this week, 50-100cm apparently. Lots of roads have been blocked due to snow and/or avi risk, and our snow chains had to be used yesterday for the first time ever – to get to the supermarket! It's unusual to have so much down at valley level, so I took a picture from the top lift station at Patscherkofel:



You can see the city on the right, then the airport towards the centre and Axamer Lizum and the slopes of Muttereralm towards the left. It looks very pretty at the moment.

And now for the reality check for anyone who thinks they're missing out by not going skiing this year: you're not.

I picked Patscherkofel today because it has fairly gentle trees (avi 4 today) and is usually fairly quiet. I've skied there a few times and never queued further than the door of the lift station, if at all. Today, the queue came out of the building, doubled back and then went the full length across the bottom of the piste past the restaurant, and continued out the other side Shocked 5pax per bubble and some running empty to pick up at the mid station won't help.

I saw the same cracks in the untouched snow as has been reported elsewhere, though they tended to be where it was a little steeper. Most of the obvious lines had already been skied out, safely by the look of it, though there was plenty of instability around the edges. Not that I was doing anything particularly risky – still skiing alone, so not even having someone to dig you out should it all go wrong does tend to focus the mind Confused

It's cold right now, really cold. Standing 30min in a queue, then sitting in a draughty bubble with a damp mask on meant by the time I got to the top I was shivering and unable to get warm again. You can't just nip in a hut for a coffee and a warm at the moment, and while the bottom restaurant was doing takeaway sandwiches (I think), you order from as window, pick up at another, and all the benches have been removed so you have to stand or sit in the snow.

You can probably tell I'm not really feeling the love right now. Skiing without friends and without the usual infrastructure and all the additional theatre isn't much fun. We stuck it for less than 3 hours before giving up and going home to warm up.

Pro tip for FFP2 masks: if you're wearing goggles and a buff, you can wedge the mask under your buff and hold it with your goggles at the nose. Tuck the elastics into the buff and you can just pull it off and stuff it back into your pocket at the top without having to remove your helmet etc. Yes, I'm aware that they are not designed to be abused in this way, but I doubt I'm getting any protection from a damp, grubby mask that doesn't fit properly anyway.

On the plus side, the other one, who took up snowboarding last season, managed to look reasonably good on a black run today, so there's hope for him yet.
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I forgot to mention the heavily armed (why?) police presence on the roundabout on the way home near my village. They'd parked up and were standing in the inside lane, the one we wanted to use, but didn't seem to be doing anything apart from looking intimidating. Often speed traps around there, but those were not radar guns. There were tons out last weekend too, when we were cycling a little further down. That time, they were pulling people over on the bridge, but not for speeding (they'd caused a long tailback, so nobody was passing at any speed).
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Scarlet wrote:
Not really been updating this, I think as we're all aware that anyone based outside Austria can't realistically get here.


I had also been thinking it was time to update this thread again, but now I'll feel doubly bad for doing so!

[quote="Scarlet"]And now for the reality check for anyone who thinks they're missing out by not going skiing this year: you're not.

I picked Patscherkofel today because it has fairly gentle trees (avi 4 today) and is usually fairly quiet. I've skied there a few times and never queued further than the door of the lift station, if at all. Today, the queue came out of the building, doubled back and then went the full length across the bottom of the piste past the restaurant, and continued out the other side Shocked 5pax per bubble and some running empty to pick up at the mid station won't help.

Sorry to hear you haven't been enjoying skiing lately. FWIW it sounds like resorts are v quiet during the week, but Patscherkofel was ALWAYS going to be super busy today: blue skies, first weekend after a huge dump, other roads/resorts like Kühtai closed, and Innsbruck's home mountain. Every piste skier and family in the city will have flocked there, and only one lift up... On days like this you either have to tour or go further away (ie Arlberg, Ischgl if it was open), as there are too many skiers on your doorstep for it to be any other way. Axamer Lizum was also busy yesterday for the same reason, though the queues moved much faster than you'd think - very drawn out due to the corona measures but moving through quickly.

Scarlet wrote:
On the plus side, the other one, who took up snowboarding last season, managed to look reasonably good on a black run today, so there's hope for him yet.


Glad to hear he's getting into it at least!

----

Re. the police, they were also in Axams yesterday. Did a valley run and while waiting for the bus they were stopping all other traffic going up - turned out there had been a massive avalanche, rescue thought someone was buried under, and had a big probe line going + 2 helis flying overhead (luckily it turned out it was a natural release and no-one was involved), and they didn't want more people adding to the chaos. However they ignored the German and Italian number-plated cars slithering around obviously on summer tyres... Perhaps the ones you saw were actually controlling foreign number plates?
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clarky999 wrote:
FWIW it sounds like resorts are v quiet during the week, but Patscherkofel was ALWAYS going to be super busy today: blue skies, first weekend after a huge dump, other roads/resorts like Kühtai closed, and Innsbruck's home mountain. Every piste skier and family in the city will have flocked there, and only one lift up... On days like this you either have to tour or go further away (ie Arlberg, Ischgl if it was open), as there are too many skiers on your doorstep for it to be any other way. Axamer Lizum was also busy yesterday for the same reason, though the queues moved much faster than you'd think - very drawn out due to the corona measures but moving through quickly.

Can only go weekdays at v. short notice now, but no one’s about so not been bothering. I’ve been up to Patscherkofel several times on weekend powder days, and there’s been no one there, which was one reason I picked it, but I get your point about other areas as Nordkette hasn’t fully opened yet either I don’t think. I figured Lizum would be heaving, and also too tempting off-piste to risk, especially after yesterday’s avalanche. No point driving all the way up to the Arlberg or Paznauntal when it’s just the two of us, and can’t tour alone so that’s out too.

Quote:
Re. the police... Perhaps the ones you saw were actually controlling foreign number plates?

Not many foreign plates in my neck of the woods Laughing
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@Scarlet, thank you for that post making the likes of me feel somewhat better about it all!

Can I ask do you think many people are driving from afar to ski or is the local only rule (as I understand it) being policed. I'm not in any way tempted just interested.
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@8611, I don't think it's so much a local-only rule, more that it is very difficult for anyone else to get here due to border restrictions and a lack of accommodation. There are foreign plated and non-local cars around, but that doesn't mean those people don't live locally or have family in the area etc. Innsbruck has a big international community, so hearing non-German speakers on the slopes doesn't mean much. I'm sure there are people staying with friends or renting an apartment on the quiet, but it's probably not that many.

Snowing again, quite heavily. On thing about living a short drive from the slopes rather than somewhere more ski-in/ski-out, is that it's much more of an effort to get out when it's actually snowing. I love skiing in falling snow, but I don't like driving in it. I also like to regularly warm up and dry off though, so it's probably a non-starter Confused
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@8611, we get day trippers from places like Graz and Linz here (Land Salzburg not Tirol), but it's mostly locals or people who own second homes here from elsewhere in Austria.
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And the resorts get enough to be profitable? I suppose there's huge local skiing in a place like Innsbruck, and at the moment an entirely captive audience!
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@8611, Not a chance. Hardly any money being made on food and drink, very few passes sold as most have a season ticket, no overnight stays, very few rentals as most will have own equipment.
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True. Sad to hear. I'd give my left arm for touring gear right now for back home and the chance of 50 vertical meters of skiing!
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Ok, lets get this thread back on track. First a recap:

December:

Other than the very start of the season, Autumn was dry and warm, and we were still hiking until well into December. This was 2300m on 28th Nov, and still no need for a jacket:





The late start actually started to become dangerous, with people like us, who would normally be skiing by then (and so have little experience of), hiking on trails that became really icy and slippy. Sadly there were a number of accidents and deaths with people falling off popular summer hiking trails.

Things started to change from around the middle of the month, with big storms mostly from the south, and benefitting in particular the southern ends of the big glacial valleys running south in the main alpine ridge.

I had to use up my remaining holiday allowance from work from Dec 119th, so as the lifts were closed, a lot of touring was in order that week! Skied/toured a few different places including Patscherkofel, Westendorf, Arlberg, and Seefeld, but highlights were:

Pitztal, with an all star crew including 1 current and 2 ex and FWT riders - I was one of the fastest up but very definitely the slowest down Laughing Laughing

Leo leads the way up:



Konsti with a super smooth flatspin:



Descent was just dreamy, so we lapped it twice:





I still didn't around to doing anything with my footage, but Fabi's clip gives a good idea. Steeper than it looks, and felt more so on wobbly early season legs!

https://www.instagram.com/p/CIqush6hr6X

And a fun day of forest laps and popping pillows after a brutal wind was massively loading our original objective in the Wipptal.

Menno gets some:





Cat took a couple of photos of me:



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clarky999
Great pics and top skiing as always.


clarky999 wrote:
The late start actually started to become dangerous, with people like us, who would normally be skiing by then (and so have little experience of), hiking on trails that became really icy and slippy. Sadly there were a number of accidents and deaths with people falling off popular summer hiking trails.


If you haven't already got some, these can be a life saver on icy walking trails.
https://www.alpenverein.at/shop/shop/artikel.php?h_no=43122
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Though the lifts opened on 24th Dec, the Christmas period and early January was also pretty dry for the majority of Tirol. While Ost Tirol and the south was BURIED under record-breaking snowfalls, the north was cold and dry. We lapped a lot of spookily empty pistes at Kühtai:



However once again the ends of the big glacial valleys delivered much better conditions. For example here at Obergurgl, which has stayed closed, the red pistes were pretty delightful:





And then it started snowing Very Happy

A succession of fronts came through, dumping right down to Innsbruck, with accumulations rarely seen at city level in such a short time period. I measured 48cm on my balcony at the deepest, so given compaction at least 75cm in total fell at city level in a couple of days.



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Menno and I both took Friday 15th off. Blue skies and gorgeous day, but with so much new snow following a long cold dry period, with widespread surface and depth hoar problems, it was avalanche level 4 and very obviously super sketchy.

We went to Axamer Lizum, but exclusively skied the valley runs through the trees. Even there conditions were amazingly unstable, with settling noises and shooting cracks in places and altitudes no-one can remember them occurring before. We scored some delicious deep turns, but were VERY careful and really micro-managed the terrain.

[/url]







Slightly sketch river crossing...



Shooting cracks and natural releases even in very mellow terrain demanded caution:





Unfortunately not everyone heeded the signs, and some were still skiing off-piste without any backpacks and safety kit. Be Nice please! dumb. Lots of students about who don't know any better, I guess, but the signs really were glaring.

Both of these were skier triggered, luckily both skied out... The second resulted in a huge search effort and probe line though as they just rode off and didn't call it in rolling eyes



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Spooked by all that powder chaos the previous day, on Saturday we went back to a different area of Wipptal forests: further south = a bit less snow, a deeper old snowpack/less old snow problems, and most importantly of all no other people! The order of the day was just chilled forest laps, mellow powder, mini pillows, and basically just having fun in a winter wonderland landscape without any stress on a dangerous level 4 day. It was bloody cold though!

Photos from Cat and Menno:













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The following Sunday (17th) the weather seemed pretty poor, with light snow but not much of it, so my gf and I just went for a skin up Nordkette to stretch the legs a bit. However, it turned it out was DUMPING up there again - Nordkette always performs better than expected in a Nordstau!

Really we should just have used the lifts, but Chrisi took her lightest skis and didn't fancy riding deep snow all day on them.





I still got some delicious turns on the one run down though!

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Shortly after that massive dump, the föhn raged through and temperatures shot up - melting much of the snow in the city very quickly. So last Saturday we just skied piste laps at Seefeld. Still surprisingly good snow on piste, and very few people about. Towards the end of the day another storm started blowing in, but it was still pretty warm:



That night there was a fair bit of snow/rain, but still warm, so Stubaier Glacier seemed like the best chance of finding good snow.

I've never ever seen the road up as quiet as it was, even in summer or Autumn. I think one other car and two ski busses, that was it. The slopes were incredibly quiet too, though I'd probably put that down to the cold - it was about -20°C - not just the corona situation. The glacier generally is only running a few of their lifts though.

In terms of snow, there was around 20cm of fresh, but pretty densely packed due to the wind. Speaking of the wind, it was howling! We skied a few fun little lines under the Rotadl chair, plus a few piste-side laps through pretty nice soft windblown chop. Then as our feet were freezing every run up the lift, we skinned up to a side col and down a variant of the Wild Grube run to the valley.





All in all some pretty ok snow, but with the crazy wind and swiftly deteriorating light/visibility we called it a day fairly early.
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There's been a fair bit more snow again this week, especially in the usual spots. Yesterday (Wed) would really have been the day, but alas I was stuck in meetings. I did manage to sneak out for a few solo lunchbreak laps at Nordkette today though. That'S one of the really amazing things about Innsbruck - I don't think there's any other city in the world with convenient enough lifts from downtown to mountain to realistically get up, ski pow and get back down to the computer again inside two hours.

Predictably the lifts at Nordkette were pretty quiet:



Pretty poor visibility, so I stuck to the area around the chairlift where foliage provides enough contrast to see. Plenty of coverage between the bushes now:





That FFFP2 mask at least helps keep the face warm!



Despite the good snow the temperature warmed up drastically during the day today, so I think I realistically got the last of the good snow. By the time I skied down around 1:30 it was already raining up to ~1400m or so, and getting warmer.

Lots more precipitation to come through the weekend, and the freezing level is up and down a lot... The next few days are gonna be a game of timing!
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My daughter is currently "studying" in Innsbruck. Every week I get photos and videos from her from various ski slopes around the city. Proud that I passed on the love of skiing, saddened like us all, that I am robbed of the opportunity to pop over for weekends and enjoy the city and the slopes....I was forlornly hoping for May and a glacier - dont see that happening now.
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@clarky999, super stuff
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Fantastic

Looks a darned good season
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Anyone know if you can ski to the bottom of the Nordkette cable car at the mo?
Doesn't happen much these days.
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@clarky999, That is some impressive photography Very Happy
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@Neil Neige, Yes you can, or at least I have on two occasions this month (last time being Thursday). However it has rained (then snowed again) since... Before that though it was possible through the trees all the way down, not just on the paths.

I wouldn’t say it doesn’t happen much, it’s still the norm that it’s possible (at least in Jan snd Feb), just the slope is officially not open due to landowner disputes. And due to that no grooming/maintenance on the tracks, so some stone dodging is often involved.

@8611, @Mike Pow, @snowheid, thanks!
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This is a photo thread, so we’d better have a photo. Unfortunately, I was having too much fun in probably the deepest powder I’ve skied in years, so I only have this shitty one. Exit through the gift shop power station:



I think you can still see how much snow there is, and now I know where to go Toofy Grin However, I will only take visitors if they promise I won’t be hearing things like “ ‘OW far!?” or “up THERE!?” all the way back to the lift Laughing

It was deep though. I fell and buried myself up to my neck. That was an interesting extraction! My buddy had laughed as I loaded my Directors into the car. Wasn’t laughing now Laughing (Incidentally, he was riding a pair of dark blue Down skis, bought used off someone who had got them off someone who got them for free...)

But mainly I posted this to discuss the avi situation today. Due to the torrential rain in the city last night, we were in Kühtai, and spent most of the day riding the area around the DreiSeenBahn. Around midday we were alerted to an avalanche that we could see on the opposite side, behind the KaiserMax bubble (whatever it’s called). It looked much steeper than anything we were on, but the rocks were now totally exposed. We were too far away to see what had happened, but a group of about 20 skiers had gathered at the bottom, and that later increased to about 40. I think someone may have been injured, but got out themselves.

Around the same time, we were suddenly being watched by the police helicopter as we descended the area behind the Dreiseenhütte. It was very close and we were concerned that they were controlling the freeride, which apparently happened last weekend at Schlick 2000 (police helis with megaphones screaming at free riders, pretty scary apperently), but they soon left. Then the yellow mountain rescue helicopter turned up in the same spot, did a couple of laps and dropped a medic down to a group we couldn’t see behind a ridge. On our next run, they winched someone out – from where we saw the group sitting at the time, it looked like a possible fall off a big rock or jump that had gone wrong, but we later found out that there were two avalanches in the DreiSeenBahn sector. We saw no evidence of them though, which concerns me a bit – what went? Why didn’t we see it? Was it near where we were skiing? We appeared to be on pretty safe terrain, though there could have been an incident after we had left the area at around 1.30pm.

I heard on the grapevine that there were many avalanches in Kühtai today, at least four created casualties, and one person died.
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@Scarlet, good to hear you're getting some powder! But please do be careful!

Yes, at least 4 avalanches in Kühtai today, with one death. The death was on the Vorderer Griesskogel - apparently a teenager. Not wearing a transceiver, and was found by a dog buried at 50cm depth. Apparently the debris was so close to the gondola, that the signals from the transceivers of people inside the gondola affected the search, which is something to bear in mind in future. From the LWD Blog: https://lawinen.report/blog/lawinenwarndienst.blogspot.com/8273014934383020908



Sounds like at least one of the 3seenbahn slides you mention was hard skiers left, left of the 3seenhütte, direction towards the dam wall - a few zones there slide reasonably regularly and can go pretty big...

There was also an avalanche death in the Kalkkögel at Axamer Lizum today. The report said Marchreisenspitz... I'm not sure yet if they mean the real classic route or one of the steeper variant couloirs. Edit, now they say Widdersberg, so I think it was in the area close to the Dohlennest hut and the small water reservoir for piste cannons. Person was touring solo and was buried 2m deep. Two other skiers saw it, located him quickly, but it's not clear how long it took to dig him out. However it seems it took around 40 minutes for a rescue team to get there and, sadly unsuccessfully, attempt resuscitation.

There were also a whole bunch of other slides involving people all across Tirol.

Here are some thoughts from Arianna Tricomi, shortly after she helped in the recovery of another dead teenager in Zillertal recently, that are worth listening too: https://www.instagram.com/tv/CKbwFtEngx2

The current tsituation is very reminiscent of 2017, with widespread persistent deep layers in the snowpack. And despite the lack of tourists about, there is still a lot of powder stress and aggressive terrain choices being made. Tread carefully!!

FWIW I spent the morning lapping delightfully slushy pistes at Seefeld in the spring temperatures this morning, until it got cold and it started snowing again.

Looks like the first half of next week will also be mild with a lot more snow/rain to come.
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 After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
Scarlet wrote:


Around the same time, we were suddenly being watched by the police helicopter as we descended the area behind the Dreiseenhütte. It was very close and we were concerned that they were controlling the freeride, which apparently happened last weekend at Schlick 2000 (police helis with megaphones screaming at free riders, pretty scary apperently)


Some of the forest off the back of Schlick to the valley is (was at least, sounds like it still may be) off limits and treated as an avalanche defence for the area below. I've been told, but don't know the truth(!) that the police have even had cameras set up there to catch and fine people dropping in.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
English version: https://lawinen.report/blog/avalanche-warning-service-tirol.blogspot.com/2971069346461999260

@clarky999, yep, that’s the one we could see, looked pretty huge. Interesting comment on the report about the beacons in the lift confusing the search below too.

If the one near the DreiSeenBahn is where I think it is, we saw some skiers coming down that side and funnelling into the sane exit, but weren’t actually that close and certainly not on or under anything that steep. Maybe it happened later. The super deep powder we found later was actually really mellow angles.

Re: Schlick. I don’t know exactly where it was, but that sounds plausible. They said it was pretty confusing but had assumed it was because of the high avi risk last weekend. I’d hope any controlled zones would be clearly marked as such, but haven’t been there myself for ages. Let me know if you figure it out.
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 Ski the Net with snowHeads
Ski the Net with snowHeads
clarky999 wrote:


Here are some thoughts from Arianna Tricomi, shortly after she helped in the recovery of another dead teenager in Zillertal recently, that are worth listening too: https://www.instagram.com/tv/CKbwFtEngx2



Christ that was arresting stuff. We're all aware of avalanches and deaths in an abstract sense but you rarely get a chance to experience the reality of it. I remember watching one of those rescue Chamonix documentaries where they were involved in the search operation after one of the big slides on the 3 Monts route to Mont Blanc. There were loads of fatalities. The footage showed them digging one of them out, the face was pixelated but the body was in effect frozen in a particular position and it was pretty horrific looking at it. Maybe we need more of that to remind people of the danger. Otherwise its just an abstract statistic.

I think when you have kids it changes your perspective a bit. Its all fine and well when you're young throwing caution to the wind but if you're going to leave young kids behind you, or if you can put yourself in the place of a parent of someone killed, at whatever age, in a ski accident, it causes you to rein it in a lot. There's plenty of enjoyment in life at a low risk.

I do 98% of my free riding from the armchair now and because I'm not on social media media reports of deaths tend to focus a lot more than glory day footage. I think she makes a good point any maybe they should do reports about turning around and not skiing stuff because it was risky more often. You will often see that on more extreme skiing focussed blogs. Or maybe ski movies with scene after scene of amazing lines skied by super skilled riders should include at least one scene where they show the steps they take to ensure safety (engaging avalanche expertise, digging the snowpack, discussing the implications of the aspect and weather etc). Would remind us that its not all balls to the wall and talent?
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