Snow for the Euros.

[sqikunst]

Weekend looks PRIMED!! taking tomorrow off my legs are shot who else is feeling it??

Tuesday birthday tour and then Wed/Thurs Work Fri-Sun skiing the POW POW in the trees...

Woohoo perfect pattern atm. Shit tons of snow then 4-5 days nice weather then Snow again.. We must be doing something right but sshhh dont tell anyone...



^^ at the top...



^^ The zone 15 min bootpack well worth it...

[Shreddy_Krueger]

Yes, forecast for the weekend looks tasty

@sqikunst: nice, huckfügen looks good, but many tracks in the second pic. How was the crowd? heavy competion?

greetz and finger crossin that their are low temps for the next round of white gold

[sqikunst]

Ost wasnt too bad.... Most of the tracks are from yesterday. I skied Untracked all day long. Maximum 35 freeriders but the place is freakin hudge. The big bowl to the right had a massive cornice break off sometime during the day and there were some scary looking "gleit spalten" dont know the English name, "Glide crack" I guess all the way to the ground anything south facing was going but all in all pretty good and fun. I pussed out on most of my lines there is definitely some tech stuff in there. As mentioned above I am toast would love to go again with a full battery in the tank. Early next week sometime.

[Ripzalot]

variable conditions at G3, still nice pow in the trees, fun day.

[Lostinthetrees]

Nothing better than a bluebird at G3 w pow.
Congrats!

[jumpturn]

The South Face of the Dent du Géant was a buffet of crusts today for about 2500m

[jumpturn]

how i learned to find the real "locked" position of the dynafit yesterday?

I lost a ski in a 45° couloir 10m before the abseil/belay chain above a 20m cliff/ rocky section because my dynafit was not in the locked position. good times (i had previously thought i skied in locked already. well, i did not.)

and yeah I found the ski on my way down while abseiling.

Get a leash set up with avy release. Beats digging up moraines for a few hours to find your ski.

[AH]

Looks like the 200cm could be in effect this weekend. AGAIN.

Up to Sunday night we are expecting 50-100cm on the north side of the French Savoie up to Steiermark. In the most precipitation-rich areas, this could even go up to 200cm! And those are just the areas that already have a solid 3-5m base!

This means the avalanche danger will rise rapidly this weekend. Stormy winds and heavy snowfall that will easily pass the 1m mark will make for an extremely tricky situation. As always, be extremely careful!

[McDee]

I was thinking hochfügen last weekend, but decided to go touring in the wattener lizum which was well worth it. May be i can tag along next time skiqunst.
And those guys from ischgl were fucking muppets... avy level 4 and roads closed, u can see them leaning on the barrier, and they decide to go into that terrain...

[sqikunst]

Im probs in SBG over the weekend but as long as it stays stormy there is plenty of the higher alpine stuff that we can hit on Monday. The dutch blokes were lucky but its one of those things like after hitting a line move out of the way, I deal with it on a weekly basis. I love it when someone skis first and then chills right beneath you on the cat track. All I see in my head is it ripping out on me and having both of us get fucked. Its another example of how mellow stuff rips as well.

On to what I really wanted to write about I am going to have to take some pictures tomorrow but at my home mountain there is at least 3m (if not 4m after the last 30cm) of settled on top and wepowder has always been quite accurate but snow forecast under reports(predicts) for the Alps all the time. If I added up all the predicted snowfall we would have 87cm at 1837 meters since the start of December. Same for this weekend. Anyone notice this or is snow forecast just conservative with their numbers??

@McDee I am skiing all next week leave IBK in the morning usually pretty early and make clutch decisions as where to go an any given day. Usually turns out pretty good though ... PM if you want details about next week.

[Shreddy_Krueger]

Im probs in SBG over the weekend but as long as it stays stormy there is plenty of the higher alpine stuff that we can hit on Monday. The dutch blokes were lucky but its one of those things like after hitting a line move out of the way, I deal with it on a weekly basis. I love it when someone skis first and then chills right beneath you on the cat track. All I see in my head is it ripping out on me and having both of us get fucked. Its another example of how mellow stuff rips as well.

On to what I really wanted to write about I am going to have to take some pictures tomorrow but at my home mountain there is at least 3m (if not 4m after the last 30cm) of settled on top and wepowder has always been quite accurate but snow forecast under reports(predicts) for the Alps all the time. If I added up all the predicted snowfall we would have 87cm at 1837 meters since the start of December. Same for this weekend. Anyone notice this or is snow forecast just conservative with their numbers??

@McDee I am skiing all next week leave IBK in the morning usually pretty early and make clutch decisions as where to go an any given day. Usually turns out pretty good though ... PM if you want details about next week.

Yes, you´re right, i also noticed that snow forecast.com under predicted the amounts. e.g. for this weekend they predicted only 20cm for northern styria, but it snowed almost 1 m

[Smiley]

Was in Mürren yesterday. Little crust on top maybe 1cm thick..only a little annoying. It was even up as high as 3000 meters on north facing stuff. Good to hear some more of the white stuff is coming our way. Sorry no action shots....flying solo.

[Hicks]

Just for the records, SLOVAKIA has been (and still is) shat on last weekend

From 3Limits

[AH]

Im probs in SBG over the weekend but as long as it stays stormy there is plenty of the higher alpine stuff that we can hit on Monday. The dutch blokes were lucky but its one of those things like after hitting a line move out of the way, I deal with it on a weekly basis. I love it when someone skis first and then chills right beneath you on the cat track. All I see in my head is it ripping out on me and having both of us get fucked. Its another example of how mellow stuff rips as well.

Sure, but this was more than a cat track, it was a road in a residential area of Ischgl. Moreover, this avalanche also hit a car on the road further down. Fortunately, no one got hurt. if anything, this shows getting to a safe spot is something you should always be aware of.

On to what I really wanted to write about I am going to have to take some pictures tomorrow but at my home mountain there is at least 3m (if not 4m after the last 30cm) of settled on top and wepowder has always been quite accurate but snow forecast under reports(predicts) for the Alps all the time. If I added up all the predicted snowfall we would have 87cm at 1837 meters since the start of December. Same for this weekend. Anyone notice this or is snow forecast just conservative with their numbers??

Thanks for the compliment!

As the person that is developing the forecast model on wePowder, I'm guessing (but I'm not aware of the exact models Snowforecast uses) the biggest difference is the human factor. Next to our automated model (incorporating GFS, ECWMF, snowfall, wind, resort characteristics, etc, about 15-20 characteristics in total and expanding) the founding team has more than 60 years of combined experience travelling the Alps and knowing exactly how valleys are laid out, which enables us to accurately predict micro-climates and generally have more fine-grained output. Most importantly however, we have a dedicated forecaster: Morris, who knows his stuff. This means we can analyse the weather daily and also interpret this with a human touch.

[Marius]

maybe some may be interested in this little web-contest. One can enter as a team of 2-3 and participate in 3 contests. beside the knowledge one can learn, the winnerteams will get 3 days freeriding (everything included! only koks and girls are an extra) full clothing from Mammut/Gore and Airbag backpacks. only 20 teams are allowed to participate so the winning-rate is quite high. one should be able speak or partially write in german.

btt: 2 days in Ischgl - somewhere between powder(heaven) and apresski(hell)

[subtle plague]

Looks like the 200cm could be in effect this weekend. AGAIN.

putting out cm marks already is really brave. because the models cut the snow from Thurs to Sat in half from esterday evening until this morning and the exact ammounts will still be difficult on Wednesday.

[Marius]

putting out cm marks already is really brave.

the more you shout out the s!cker you are!

[AH]

putting out cm marks already is really brave. because the models cut the snow from Thurs to Sat in half from esterday evening until this morning and the exact ammounts will still be difficult on Wednesday.

We're not into cm's at all (we're more focused on 'where to go') and we're definitely not about trying to claim sickness, but this storm will be big, especially in the stau-regions, where it could turn epic like last time (last time we called the 200cm rule it actually turned out to be too cautious!).

[subtle plague]

No worries. I just wanted to point out the difficulty, since my forecast is still in the "It will be big, but i don't know how" range.

[Meathelmet]

As the person that is developing the forecast model on wePowder, I'm guessing (but I'm not aware of the exact models Snowforecast uses) the biggest difference is the human factor. Next to our automated model (incorporating GFS, ECWMF, snowfall, wind, resort characteristics, etc, about 15-20 characteristics in total and expanding) the founding team has more than 60 years of combined experience travelling the Alps and knowing exactly how valleys are laid out, which enables us to accurately predict micro-climates and generally have more fine-grained output. Most importantly however, we have a dedicated forecaster: Morris, who knows his stuff. This means we can analyse the weather daily and also interpret this with a human touch.

A quick wepowder question : What happened to the "predicted snowfall" charts on the webpage? I remember that on some point you had the "snowfall in the last X hours" and "predicted snowfall" overlays on the map, but nowadays I cant find them either on iPhone or on your website? Did they get removed or have I smoked too much crack??
Just that when you are on the road, and have limited access to wlans (let alone 3G roaming!!!) it would be nice and dandy if you could get that part simplified so that you could see some kind of
0-12, 0-24, 0-72 predictions with one or two clicks.

I remember stopping in the middle of the night,in some small italian village as I found a unsecured wlan there... there,sitting in the car I was trying to make some half assed guesses where I should head: Left or right..

Am I missing something?


Edit: iOS5, Os X 10.7.2, chrome & safari.

Edit 2 : Love the wepowder. Good compliment to go with the local forecasts & my fav, www.wetterzentrale.de/topkarten

[sqikunst]

No worries. I just wanted to point out the difficulty, since my forecast is still in the "It will be big, but i don't know how" range.

The part in red is the only thing we should be taking away from that statement!!

[AH]

A quick wepowder question : What happened to the "predicted snowfall" charts on the webpage? I remember that on some point you had the "snowfall in the last X hours" and "predicted snowfall" overlays on the map, but nowadays I cant find them either on iPhone or on your website? Did they get removed or have I smoked too much crack??
Just that when you are on the road, and have limited access to wlans (let alone 3G roaming!!!) it would be nice and dandy if you could get that part simplified so that you could see some kind of
0-12, 0-24, 0-72 predictions with one or two clicks.

Hi Meathelmet: you haven't smoked too much crack just yet That part is currently broken in our international site. As we are launching a site before the end of the month, this hasn't gotten the attention it deserves. However, we do have a great alternative (if you are running macOs, windows or linux) in the form of our desktop app. This has the maps just 1 click away (and will be getting a really cool update in the next 2 weeks as well!)

The snow maps are still there on Powfinder for iPhone (also just 1 click away)

[rogierkoop]

do you use the latest powfinder app? The maps on wepowder.com seems bonked, but on wepowder.nl they still work
http://www.wepowder.nl/versesneeuw/snowmaps#

[jumpturn]

We're not into cm's at all (we're more focused on 'where to go') and we're definitely not about trying to claim sickness, but this storm will be big, especially in the stau-regions, where it could turn epic like last time (last time we called the 200cm rule it actually turned out to be too cautious!).

Snowguess consistently understimates snowfall for Chamonix by 2-3x before wind loading.

You guys seem to have a better system.

Hi Meathelmet: you haven't smoked too much crack just yet

Never enough!

[comish]

skied some older pow in the Arlberg today. Beautiful day. Took some hunting and needed to stay northish facing to not have a crust, but certainly fun.