Kaunertal mini pow

The 2014/2015 season is late in the Alps. There's barely any snow in smaller resorts but on the high elevation glacier resorts conditions seem ok. On 20th December 2014 we had a nice 10 cm powder session in Kaunertal.

Not much snow but winter is for sure here:

Winds have been high on the ridges so there is a lot of drift snow which is dangerous for avalances:

Speaking of avalanches. Up at 3000 meters there is not much base snow. The whole pack is sugar snow which slides easily like in this example of mine just next to the piste. The snow was light and the test turn triggered the sluff which exposed too many rocks so we traversed back to the slopes.

Next to the slopes conditions were then perfect with 10 cm of fresh light snow. Kaunertal has a lot of terrain though most of it is in the shadows on the early season days. Below 2700 meters the snow base was much more firm so we were able to ski off piste from top to bottom basically. Some sunny pictures:

At the top there's also a new tunnel which means no hiking is needed to ski from glacier side following skiers left back to the parking lot at 2000 meters:

Warm weather had left a small crust layer above 2000 meters but it was not thick enough to cause problems:

Kaunertal area is fun in this kind of conditions, and not too crowded when racers stayed on their courses and most others on the pistes:

A very nice day I must say. Temperature was -7 at 2000 meters and more with wind factor up at 3000 meters. Winter conditions I would say. Just add a lot of more snow...

Happy holidays!

-Mikko