The Mountain Echo

Spring weather rushed in early this past week as rain and freezing levels reached up to 3000 metres at times over the weekend of the 20th – a dip in temperatures came in on Monday night, Tuesday and Wednesday. Then big winds started Weds morning out of the South East that continued along with another temperature spike and freezing levels back up to 3000 metres on Thursday. Then a big drop in temps, continued winds and snow at the end of the week (winds out of the West/North)! Snow showers will continue through the weekend, with rain/snow limit down to around 1200 metres. Early this coming week: snow showers will continue with some clearing spells and temps fluctuating – the snow/rain limit will oscillate between 1200-1800 until mid week according to the forecast.

Snow Quality and Stability
In sum, this past week was very complicated, but sometimes simple. For example, early on in the week, when it was raining, some really nice snow was to be found.. up higher than the rain/snow limit! But then the lack of freezing at night made it hard (and dangerous) to take advantage of the spring snow until Tuesday and Wednesday due to freezing at night. I found some good fresh snow (sprinkles from Monday night) on North facing slopes on Tuesday onwards, see vids of us skiing it on Weds 24 March if you don’t believe me! on www.getoffpiste.com There was also some good spring snow in places if you looked, used your common sense and weren’t afraid of making mistakes: sinking in wet snow from time to time and rattling across frozen snow that was gouged out by people sinking in the day before. For a good summary of what the snow quality was like this past week, see “Wayne’s Daily Diary’ on the web site: www.alpineexperience.com

Snow Quality: The rise in temperatures early this past week along with the lack of freeze at night i.e. continued high temperatures through the night, led to a big cycle of avalanching; the rapid rise in temperatures after such a cold spell, along with a very unstable layer of faceted snow grains at the bottom of the snowpack (see video on my blog www.getoffpiste.com on 19 March) made this one of the most active avalanching cycles we’ve seen for a while here in the Northern French Alps.

In fact so many avalanches were observed that many people questioned why the avalanche rating was dropped down from 4 over the weekend to 3 early in the week (see my blog www.getoffpiste.com for info and a debate on that). The net effect, however, has been a real stabilisation of the snowpack thanks to the rain and the warmth followed by lower temps. Those places that did not get much of the warming and the humidification/rain, still have an exposed cohesionless base in the snowpack – this snowpack was not subject to much melting and freezing on slopes that are high and North above 2600 metres or so.

Tips for this coming week
The snowpack has stabalised but, high North facing slopes of 2600 metres plus, that haven’t been skier compacted, will be something to watch out for because of the somewhat exposed, fragile cohesionless layer of snow (see my discussion on Snow Stability above) will end up under any new snow that we’ve received at the end of this week or weekend. Keep up-to-date on the snow conditions and stability by visiting our blog on www.getoffpiste.com and go to the avalanche forecast translation in the left column, OR if you can read French, on: www.meteo-france.com >Montagne>Bulletins Avalanches.