Innsbruck & Tirol 22/23 Snow

A snowHead

Time to get this show on the road again!

Weekend before last we still had epic biking conditions up to ~2000m in Stubaital:

And today for the second time this week we've got (light/wet) snow down to the city.

From the Innsbruck area ski resorts (or at least those on our season pass), currently:

- Stubaier Glacier is OPEN
- Obergurgl is OPEN
- Ischgl opens this Thursday (24th Nov)
- Axamer Lizum opens this Saturday (26th Nov)
- Kühtai opens 2 December

A snowHead

Niice - enjoy the season, hope to catch up! We're out Christmas and early March.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

@clarky999, whats the mtb trails like round the city? are many locals digging?

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Anyone wanting to test skis, you can do so at Axamer Lizum this weekend 26-27 Nov (see Sportler app), and at Mayrhofen on 3-4 Dec (Penkenbahn Bergstation).

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

@Markymark29, for sure! Christmas might be tricky for me but March should work!

@Mother hucker, mostly illegal haha! Apart from the bike park anyway. The Arzler Alm Trail on the Nordkette side is the only real legal option, officially the city pays for it to be maintained but in practise locals do a lot of work on it. It's actually a really good trail with lots of variety though, and tbh I prefer it to any of the trails in the bike park. ~550m vert from my front door. Video is a little cheesy but shows the character pretty well:

http://youtube.com/v/zTpALQJF4ro

There are a lot of locals digging on the other side of the valley though, and ironically those are about the best maintained trails in the area haha. Some hidden, some obvious and unofficially tolerated. Rough, rooty, steep and chunky, with some shaped jumps and turns in places. About ~350m vert from the city.

There's a whole bunch of epic big adventure rides around too, but the hikers tend to whinge so only really worth it when the lifts are closed, whether that's summer evenings (fire roads up are legal, just save the trails down 'til the hikers have gone home) or in autumn. My biggest this season was about 2200m vert from home and was definitely quite the sufferfest: https://www.strava.com/activities/8048791642 And was stoked to tick this one off the day after, because I can see the trail from my balcony haha (plus quite satisfying to poach one of the 'classic' hiking trails): https://www.strava.com/activities/8053992664

Apparently the Nordkette Singletrail will be opened again next summer. Not sure how well known it is/was, but it's supposed to be pretty infamous. Certainly what you see from the hiking trails next to it looks proper mad steep and rough/loose to boot... I've never ridden and tbh there are lots of sections I'm not good enough to ride, but I think this gives a good idea (starts to get interesting from ~3:25):

http://youtube.com/v/5lXlENVIjQY

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I looked on trail forks and found very little. I know there has to be more. I was expecting it to be like Innerleithen/squamish. Is there a renowned local dig crew? so much terrain to dig so close to the population, should be a trail honeypot. Do the council come in and smash stuff down?

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After all it is free

@clarky999,
"Probably a topic for another thread though"

yes probably right.

First day of the season for me, at Axamer Liz's opening day. Good to get back on snow!

Conditions were actually better than expected, despite only one (new) lift and 1.5 pistes being officially open. New lift is a major improvement: straight from the car park to Hoadl, instead of having to either take two lifts or walk up from the car park to the Olympiabahn as before.

Top half of the Damenabfahrt was skiing really nicely, with the new natural snow on top of whatever they'd blown with the cannons:

Lower down soon quickly scraped down to the artificial snow below, then by the afternoon even that was wearing thin with gravel showing through in places towards the bottom. More snow is definitely needed!

The Herrenabfahrt was open 'til the mid-station (new mid-station of the new lift), but just about skiable (mostly not groomed though) all the way down. Off to the side of where the piste goes I got about 3 turns that almost kinda gave that powder feeling Laughing

, then a few more on the frozen grass below the new snow:

Good to see the Kalkkögel looking wintery again though:

Only a couple of weeks that zone (to the right of the photo above) still looked like this:

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I was up at Stubai today, digging out transceivers on an avalanche course. The plan was to spend the day on the ridge at the top of the Fernau chair, but we had to bin that idea when the entire group was frozen solid within five minutes of standing around up there. We moved to an area at the side of the piste just above the mid station, which was more sheltered and a little warmer (but still absolutely freezing!).

The pistes were really nice, with some fresh, light snow on the top. The area we were digging was actually fairly easy to move around in because the snow was soft and not so deep – about 70cm total depth to the grass, with about half that being fresh powder.

I was going to go to Axamer Lizum tomorrow, but having seen those pics I’m not sure it’s worth it! I’ll see how I feel, gonna need plenty of sleep first anyway.

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@clarky999, there was a couple on mins queue at the Eisgrat Talstation at 8.30, but it was only as far as the toilets. Fernau had no queue. We mostly kept to ourselves out of the way, but what we did ski was fine and the only annoyance was the rammed Dresdnerhutte at 1pm, but you could go elsewhere or try not to hit it at the most popular time rolling eyes

For piste skiing, I’d say it’s fine, though we really only saw the Fernau bit.

@Scarlet, I was up the glacier last weekend doing some Avi training. Digging pits there's a nasty weak layer of sugar snow on the ground.

You know it makes sense.

I skied at Ischgl yesterday, as they currently have - I think - the largest open ski area in AT. Beautiful weather and mostly ok-to-decent snow even though depths are below average. New for this season they now charge for parking even in the big old outdoor car parks, no matter whether you have a season pass or buy a day ticket (prices for which have increased to €67)... As the couple from Imst who parked next to me commented ironically, it seems the Ischgler don't have enough money yet rolling eyes

However the skiing is pretty nice:

Not all lifts and pistes are open, but one can still ski into every part of the ski area with ~100km of pistes currently open. For the most part the pistes are firm but grippy, with a bit of natural snow and newly blown snow dusted over the top. Today both home runs seem to be closed, but yesterday both 1 and 1a were open (37 closed). 1a had some super slippy patches where the snow was scraped down to the boilerplate below, but the main home run (1) was actually pretty nice to ski and grippy the whole way down:

There was some natural snowfall last week, and plenty too people had been skiing offpiste. Vast majority was too shallow even for me (and I'm not precious at all about my bases), but I did find one or two nice mellow piste side spots for a few turns:

However, the offpiste is VERY touchy right now with MANY releases (natural, controlled and triggered) on anything even moderately steeper. There's more snow due this week but anyone skiing offpiste should pick terrain very defensively and cautiously.

The sun sets really early at this time of year, making for pretty cool light for the last run down:

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In other news, Kühtai will be the next ski resort around here opening - this Friday 2nd Dec. Webcams look like pretty ok cover already with another maybe ~15cm due this week.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

@clarky999, how much they charging in the car park?

A snowHead

Website says Five Euros;

https://www.ischgl.com/en/More/Directions/Parking

Bit annoying really, I've always liked the fact that many Austrian resorts don't charge to park.

A snowHead

Not surprising that Ischgl are looking to extract yet more cash from visitors, especially those that dont stay in Ischgl itself. The bus service is not the best either. That said St Anton has charged for a number of years for day parking but there is an excellent bus service and train link to Innsbruck. I suspect that those places that have a large number of day visitors, the resorts around Innsbruck for example, will be less inclined to charge.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Yep €5 outside in old car parks or I think €7 in the garage. Since corona quite a few resorts have started charging to park if going skitouring rather than buying a lift ticket, which seems fair enough, but most still have free parking for lift users (whether season or day pass). Arlberg have charged for years though too.

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I get charging if not having a lift ticket but that's clearly wasn't needed in their profit margins before, That's a big low overhead profit

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Yep, and there are places where it has been implemented well (scan lift pass on machine to print a free ticket), and places where it has been implemented badly (buy refundable ticket from machine, then queue up at the Kassa to have an argument about getting money back rolling eyes

). It’s quite annoying, really.

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Will the Russians visit this year I wonder? Will there be bargains in ischgl and courcheval and the like if not?

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@8611, The words "bargain" & "Ischgl" are rarely found in the same sentence!

After all it is free

@munich_irish, you can add Coucheval to that also.

@Mother hucker, I have been to Courcheval once, 30 years ago on a bargain last minute chalet deal Smile

. Perhaps it was before the Russians discovered skiing.

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@munich_irish, inclined to agree albeit I do have fond memories of good cheap self catering accomodation and a fantastic value meal in a nice hotel the first time I visited

The 25k bottles of champagne and the scam ski rental cartel perhaps less value

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i will be staying in Gotzens this february, is the run from Axamer Lizum to the Gotzens/Mutters ski area easy to follow, is it a piste or off piste...thanks.

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Schlick 2000 opened on Saturday (with more slopes open than Kühtai), so it would have been rude not to go for a poke about...

In general: surprisingly decent snow, and mostly bad light. The top half of the mountain was actually really nice following some fresh snow overnight and the day before. Only the last ~200m vert before the mid station (of the gondola, which sits more like one third up the mountain from the base) felt like artificial snow and became pretty slippy later in the day. No snow below that mid-station, so the last third of the descent has to be done by gondola atm. There were actually some pretty ok powder stashes around in places too, but only maybe ~15cms.

Visibility got worse as the day wore on and the weather moved in from the south. Few flakes falling at Schlick by close of day but looked like Stubaier Glacier must have been getting more:

A 40-60 minute hike from Axamer Lizum (on the other side) gets you to this and a bunch more tasty terrain dropping down into Schlick. Obvs needs a lot more snow rn though!

You know it makes sense.

Hey folks

Any SH around Innsbruck area?

What are conditions like?

Is current mild weather causing havoc or are temps just about ok? Looking at forecasts somewhere between 2-5 degrees at 1600m?

Thanks in advance for any updates Eh oh!

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

@neilkav, pistes are fine. Off piste is thin and sharky. Avi level 4 tomorrow afternoon because of forecast rain. Prediction is for high avi risk on Saturday too. Check the weather and travel bulletins if you’re on the move, as high avi risk could potentially affect the roads.

Avi bulletin: https://avalanche.report/bulletin/latest

A snowHead

Cheers Scarlet!

A snowHead

@Scarlet, thin and shark up top, have the meadows not got enough cover to be interesting

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Yeah sorry guys, conditions aren't great atm... Overall pistes are/were firm but good and off-piste thin but rideable if you pick your line and a mix from powder (at times) to windboard and crust - and *very* touchy from an avalanche perspective. We've already had a few snowfalls to the city too, with snow staying on the roofs and in parks/gardens up until Thurs/Friday. But yesterday (Thurs) was already getting slushy and then rain today (Fri) to around 1800m... Pistes are actually (as of Thursday) still skiing really nicely, actually better as they softened up. But offpiste conditions are definitely not optimal.

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We have had some decent skiing through December 'til now though, mostly just cruising the pistes and working on form, and it's been bloody FREEZING at time's at Stubaier Glacier. Life's been too busy to keep up on here but some of photos:

Opening Day at Seefeld ('firm but still fun'):

First little tour of the season (only 400m vert or so) last Saturday at Stubai to access one of the side bowls:

There'd been no tracks in here when we started up, but someone dropped in in the meanwhile. Menno follows:

What we'd hoped would be a firm entrance then wind-blown powder turned out to be a wind-blasted entrance into windslab into breakable crust. Perfect training Laughing

Thursday at Seefeld was a lot less inviting, but actually the skiing was much nicer with the top centimetre of snow softening into grippy slush with the base underneath remaining firm:

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Can anyone give a update on Ischgl piste conditions and if there is any possibility at all of off piste? we aren’t heading out until a couple of weeks but getting excited. Thanks

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

I'm in Kirchberg at the minute. Pistes are good, I hear some folks say they're icy but id say they're firm but grippy. Bumpy lower down later in the day but I enjoy bumps. Not much in the way of off piste but the terrain and options look fun whe there's some snow. I'm enjoying it here even though its a lean year so far

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@clarky999,
How are things holding up Clarky?
Pistes still ok I imagine but no off piste?
Seeing various forecasts showing some snow for the weeekend, do the local folks agree?

Thanks in advance Neil.

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

I see that Ischgl have closed all the lifts on the Palinkopf from today, I guess because the pistes off it are suffering?

After all it is free

@neilkav, I don't think many locals are out on the slopes right now. The snow line is about 2000m, so all resorts visible from the city are a gradually decreasing strip of white through the brown fields Confused

Reports are that it is getting too warm and conditions on the white strips are not great. We considered going up to Glungezer yesterday for a couple of runs and lunch, but the webcam revealed that the ground was showing through across half the piste near the mid station so we sacked that off to hike to a different hut, one that can often be skied to, albeit not normally at the beginning of January. It was hot, we sat outside – unusual at this time of year.

The weather station on my balcony is currently reporting 21C. It is not in direct sun. The weather right now is stable, hot and sunny. I cannot see any precipitation in the forecast, so the pattern will probably hold for at least a week – further out than that is too soon to predict.

The glaciers will probably be better, as they are above the snow line, but I suspect that conditions are very slick. A woman died yesterday at Hintertux after falling on a red run, sliding through a barrier and hitting a tree. Her friend also fell in the same area (separately, this was not a collision incident) and hit rocks, and was taken to hospital, and something similar happened to another skier later in the day. https://www.tt.com/artikel/30841894/dramatischer-skitag-in-hintertux-28-jaehrige-frau-tot-drei-schwerverletzte

If it is possible to download on a bubble from the higher slopes, now is the time to use it.

Ouch thanks Scarlet doesn’t sound good at all, we’re out on the 15th to schlick just praying for a change - Puzzled

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Innsbruck & Tirol 22/23 Snow

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