Anif Couloirs

Some more early season bluebird skiing. We snow-wheeled to 750m, still some rocks on the road all the way to the alpine. We found great snow in some north facing couloirs. In the central Anif couloir we approached from the bottom, coverage was pretty thin with just 10-20cm of fluff on rocks. Below this layer was a 5cm icier crust that had a rough uneven shear with the layer below it. Great skiing but got a few scratches. We then went over to the ridge to find much deeper but wind affected snow in the pillows leading to the col. The bottom of the valley has a significant layer (5cm) of hoar frost forming in cleared areas near the creek. We didn’t see this surface hoar on any terrain >10 degrees.