Sunday, March 17, 2024

Sastrugi

Along with graupel, sastrugi is one of my favorite weather-related words and I saw plenty of it ski touring yesterday.  

Sastrugi is defined by avalanche.org as "heavily wind eroded snow with wavy textures." Sometimes it looks rough or pockety.  In the photo below, it appears there is avalanche debris on this slope, but in reality it is all sastrugi.  

In some areas, the sastrugi was dense wind board and generally supportive of a skier. 

In others, it was actually somewhat soft and didn't ski to bad on the descent. Each turn was a mystery!

Although I like sastrugi as a word, it's not my favorite snow surface to ski.  We can blame the sastrugi in this case on the multiday easterly wind event that has been affecting the Wasatch Range and Front since Thursday.  Observations from Alta's Mt. Baldy show the winds veering (turning clockwise) from southwesterly just prior to 1200 MCT 12 March (Tuesday) to north by 0000 MDT 14 March and then locking in with easterly flow with gusts reaching over 50 mph on the 15th (Friday) when most of the damage was done. 

The large-scale setup for these winds was something that meteorologists call anticyclonic wave breaking in which a high-amplitude ridge develops in the high latitudes and leads to the formation of a closed low downstream and to the south.  Below is the GFS analysis for 1200 UTC 15 March during the period of stronger easterly flow on Mt. Baldy.  Note the ridge off the Pacific Northwest coast and the deep closed low centered along the CA-MX border, resulting in strong easterly 700-mb (crest-level) flow over the Wasatch. 


This is the same pattern that produced heavy snowfall along the Colorado Front Range. Basically, this is a complete reversal of the climatological westerlies.  They get upslope and we get downslope.  

The pattern has been very persistent and this morning enhanced easterlies ares still being observed along the east bench of the Salt Lake Valley north of Holladay, although they are weaker than at the peak.  

Friday, March 15, 2024

Austrian Misadventures, Part III

We will return to regularly scheduled programming soon, but I hope you will entertain one more additional post on our misadventures in Austria.

Ischgl

After skiing the Arlberg, we decided that we should get up early the next day and ski Ischgl.  We had put off skiing long enough and Erik seemed to be skiing decent on the pistes with his arm in a sling.  It's a bit of a haul to Ischgl on transit, so got up early, caught a 6:41 train to Landeck, and then a bus up the Paznaun valley to Ischgl, arriving at about 8:30 as the valley lifts opened.  

Ischgl is located in the next vavlley south from St. Anton, just 12-km away as the crow flies.  It receives a bit less snow since it is deeper in the inner Alps, but has two distinct advantages for skiing.  It has more high elevation terrain and it has predominantly northwest aspects.  Although not as spread out as St. Anton, it is a big resort, with a vertical drop of almost 5000 feet.  It is also known for a hedonistic night life and served as "ground zero" for the COVID spread through Europe, but we weren't going there to party.

We caught the Pardatschgratbahn S3 cable car which brought us from 1377 to 2600 meters and then started working our way southward.  In the southern portion of the resort you'll find the Gampenbahn six pack chairlift, which rises just over 3000 vertical feet and has the largest vertical rise of any six-passenger chairlift in the world.   

It also services pretty good terrain, especially on its upper half.  I no longer have the legs to do this, but I've often wondered how much vertical you could rack up on a chair like this.  

To the south past the Gampenbahn, there is a lot of open terrain and only one lift, the Piz Val Gronda cable car.


The 150 passenger aerial tram services an enormous amount of freeride terrain, although some of it is flat or lower angle.  There is only one piste.  There is no restaurant at the top.  I like to call it the cable car to nowhere.  I have heard that it's construction was controversial since it covered terrain that was otherwise undeveloped or at least underdeveloped.  

We then worked our way back to the north and eventually across the main Ischgl ridge.  Crossing this ridge puts you in Switzerland and the Samnaun ski resort. The two are interconnected and served by one pass.  Samnaun also provides almost 5000 vertical feet of relief.  We lacked the time to ski to the bottom, but did ski the upper part of the resort and skied down into the Mülbach valley for lunch.

We weren't disappointed. 


One rarely is disappointed when it comes to food in the Alps.  

After skiing back over the Ischgl, we spent a little time skiing under the Pardatschgratbahn S3 cable car.  I have skied at Ischgl three times, and each time, the #4 piste offered up uncrowded cruising.    

We descended down to Ischgl and walked about a half a kilometer to the first bus stop before town.  This is a good rule to follow if you want a seat on busy days.  

Artzler Alm

After skiing Ischgl, we had only one day left in Innsbruck.  We decided not to push our luck with more skiing. We also needed to pack, which was not a trivial matter given that we had brought touring and alpine gear.  

We decided to take advantage of the mild valley weather and go for a hike to Artzler Alm, a lower elevation mountain hut just north of Innsbruck.  It was their first day open for the season and we were amongst their first customers.  


I'm a big fan of hiking to these huts where I like to enjoy a johannisbeere gespritzt (sparking water flavored with black currants), and either lunch, cake, or strudel.  

And the views are very enjoyable.  Note the structural defenses for avalanches on the left in the photo. This is near the bottom of a long-running path that has penetrated into the upper reaches of residential areas near Innsbruck.

If you ever visit Innsbruck, consider a hike to one of the great mountain huts above town.  At lower elevations, you'll find Umbrugler Alm, Artzler Alm, and Rumer Alm.  Higher up Bodenstein Alm and Höttenger Alm.  None of these will disappoint.  You can do some nice loops if you hook up with the Seegrube cable car.  

Munich

Our trip concluded the next day with pigs knuckle in Munich.

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Austrian Misadventures, Part II

Previously on Wasatch Weather Weenies, the ski plans of my son and I in Austria were marred by a dislocated shoulder and we began to travel around Tyrol and environs using Innsbruck as a base.    

After going to Sölden (see Austrian Misadventures, Part I) where I was able to do some skiing, the weather deteriorated and we elected to shift back to more traditional sightseeing for a couple of days.

Salzburg and Innsbruck

My son had never been to Salzburg, so we grabbed an early morning train, consumed pastries on the way, and went for a visit.  On one of the OBB railjet trains, that reach speeds of up to about 145 miles per hour, it's less than a 2 hour trip (one doesn't go that fast the whole way, but it's nice to fly along in sections).  Many people who visit Salzburg do the Sound of Music tour.  I have been to Salzburg several times and am proud to say that I've yet to do it.  Instead, we visited the Hohensalzburg Fortress, a medieval monster that sits on a hill above town.  

Construction on the fortress began in 1077 with various additions over the years.  It must have been imposing back in the day (it still is) and quite a seat of power.  We enjoyed a bit of time walking through town and visiting a few other sights like the Mirabell Palace gardens, which were just starting to wake up from their winter slumber.

After four days with a good deal of travel, we then spent a day in Innsbruck.  I attended a seminar in the Department of Atmospheric and Cryospheric Sciences and we had dinner with several friends from the Department. 

This was also the day when Erik said that he wanted to go skiing, even if it was in a sling and sticking to pistes.  

I confess I had some trepidation about Erik skiing.  I didn't want to see him fall on that shoulder again.  On the other hand, it costs almost as much to buy a pedestrian pass to ride a cable car once as it does to buy a lift ticket.  Why not ski conservatively and make a day of it?  

Ski Arlberg

The next morning we traveled to St. Anton to give Erik the experience of village to village skiing in the Alps.  St. Anton is part of the largest interconnected ski area in Austria, known as Ski Arlberg or simply The Arlberg.  The Arlberg is one of the snowier locations in the Alps and it is possible to ski, without using anything but lifts, through several villages including St. Anton, St. Christoph, Stuben, Zürs, Lech, Warth, and Schröcken, which are located in the Stanzer, Klöster, Lech, and Krumbach Valleys.  

Ski Arlberg is also one of the busiest ski areas in the Alps, so this is industrial-scale skiing on everything from cable cars to t-bars.  In some areas, a small number of pistes (sometimes one) are serviced by one or more high-capacity lifts, and on-piste skier density is terrifyingly high. This added to my trepidation.

To get to St. Anton, we took the train from Innsbruck.  You are there in about an hour and 10 minutes.  The train station sits right on the edge of the village, about a five minute walk from the lifts (photo below actually from our departure that afternoon).  Talk about convenience!

For our first run, we took an easy run from the top of the Galzigbahn cable car down to the village of St. Christoph on the Arlberg pass.  The trail wasn't crowded, so this was a good situation for Erik to get used to the sling and one-pole skiing.  Clouds were still lingering over the Arlberg pass, but blue skies prevailed to the west where we were heading.  

After riding two chairlifts, we then had to do one of the most terrifying descents of the day from the Ulmer Hütte down the one groomed piste in the Valfagehrbach valley to the Flexenbahn cable car near Stuben.  It's a beautiful descent. 

However, it is the only groomed piste to connect from St. Anton to Stuben and it is quite crowded (I had nightmares of skiing this run from when I lived in Innsbruck in 2019).  Further, on the day we were there, a few cm of fresh snow sat on top of a rock hard melt-freeze crust, which quickly resulted in a hard ice/soft mogul situation that tortured the many skiers of limited abilities.  We slowly picked our way down this to ensure no surprise collisions.

What a relief to get down.  We then rode the flexenbahn cable car and skied down to Zürs, pictured in the valley to the right in the photo below (to the left is the Klöster valley). 


We did some skiing in the Zürs area before ascending the Madlochbahn to ski down to Zug.  The descent to Zug is long and quite spectacular.  I've had my eye on some of the freeride terrain in this area since I first skied this route in 2019, but alas it would need to wait for another day.  


We stuck to the pistes as we descended to Zug with views of Lech and the Lech Valley. 


Eventually we found our way to Lech.  Under normal circumstances, I suspect we would have already gotten to Warth at the northern end of Ski Arlberg, but we were skiing cautiously and puttering along and decided to head back to St. Anton from after pounding a schnitzel semmel at the local grocery store. 

Lech

The section from Lech back to Zürs is one of my favorites, not because the skiing is great (it's pretty low angle), but because the views are so spectacular.  From Lech, one rides the Rüfikopfbahn about 3000 vertical feet to a high shelf above Zürs.  You just meander on beginner runs along his shelf, gaping at the surrounding scenery.  


Eventually one reaches the Trittalpbahn chairlift and rides it to gain a bit more vertical before descending to Zürs.  From here, you ascend one gondola and then descend another to get back to near Stuben (there are no marked descent routes to get back down to near Stuben).  

There's still one more lift to go, the Valfagehr to near Ulmer Hütte from where you can descend all the way back to St. Anton.  But on such a nice day, there is another option, and that is to catch the Schlepp Lift and then ski down to the Vallugabahn I cable car and take it up to 2600 meters.  From here, you can take a small, 6 passenger cable car to the top of the Valluga and gape at the Arlberg.  No skis are allowed (without guide) on the latter, so it's purely a scenic ride. 



After riding back down the small cable car, you can finally ski down to a T-bar, ride it back up a few hundred vertical feet, and then do the very long descent to St. Anton.  We did this late in the day with hoards of other skiers also trying to get back to St. Anton, resulting in our second terrifying descent of the day.  In this case, not only was the trail packed, but half of the skiers are also inebriated.  Eastern skiers will recognize the "loose and frozen granular" snow condition.  


St. Anton is famous for après and the run back to town eventually takes you past some of the more popular bars including the Sennhütte, Heustadl, and Mooserwirt. 


Our circuit covered 18 runs, 39 km, and 7750 meters of vertical.  It was a pretty good day given the limitations (missing in the route below is the initial ride up the Galzigbahn from St. Anton). 


St. Anton's full "Run of Fame", advertised as the longest ski cruicuit in the Alps, allegedly covers 85 km and 18,000 m of vertical.  We skipped Rendl (south of St. Anton), Stuben, and the extension up to Warth and Schröcken. That will need to wait for two arms.  I suspect if I were ever to attempt it, I'd rather start in Zürs (probably bussing from the train station) as St. Anton is a much larger village and it produces quite a pulse of skiers all attempting the same circuit.  Alternatively, we could do what one of my Austrian friend recommends and that is to forget the Run of Fame and focus on good terrain.  That's probably good advice.

We didn't linger in St. Anton for après.  Instead, caught the train back to Innsbruck because we were thinking about getting some sleep, getting up early, and going to another mega resort.  That will be the subject of part III.

Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Austrian Misadventures, Part I

 "Plans are worthless, but planning is everything"
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

For the past few years, my son and I have been trying to find a time when our schedules align for a father/son trip that my mother suggested we do after my father and his grandfather passed away.  Pandemic, school, work, and life made finding a block of time difficult for many years.  

It appeared, however, we could pull something off this winter over my spring break, so in early January we booked a trip to Austria so that I could give him a proper introduction to backcountry and resort skiing in Tyrol and environs.  

We spent a lot of time trying to figure out where to stay, where to ski, etc.  Ultimately we settled on staying the entire trip in Innsbruck since it is easy to use transit to travel to any number of resorts or touring areas from Bavaria to the north to South Tyrol to the south and from St. Anton to the west to Kitzbuhel in the east.  In addition, I have a number of friends in the Innsbruck area, so we would have some local skiing and dining partners.  

At least that was the plan.  

Our first day in Innsbruck dawned with cloudy skies and some fits and starts of valley rain and mountain snow.  We decided to take an easy ski tour up Axamer Lizum, a local resort, and enjoy the culinary delights at the top.  This turned out to be a good call as the visibility was pretty much nil at upper elevations, so it would have been a waste to buy a lift ticket and ski touring outside the confines of a resort would have been terrifying.

Plus, we did find the culinary delights at the top.

After enjoying a proper lunch, we began to ski down.  We were traveling slowly down a groomer given the visibility when all of a sudden I saw my son take a hard, awkward fall.  I'm not sure if he hit a grooming rut or what, but I haven't seen him fall in years and I got a pit in my stomach.  He was in a lot of pain and said he felt his arm come out of the socket and go back in.  The pit got deeper.  

After giving him a few minutes, he decided to ski down to the bottom, which we did.  We then got on the bus back to Innsbruck.  While riding back to town, the arm came painfully out again.  I called a friend in Innsbruck who met us at the hospital where the dislocated shoulder diagnosis was confirmed and he was fitted for a sling.

Ski trip over, or so we thought.  

That night, although in shock, we started making a list of things we could do.  Staying in Innsbruck turned out to be very fortuitous since it is so easy to access transit from the main train station only a 5 minute walk from our rented flat.  

The next morning, we bought week long transit passes covering all rail and bus transit in Tyrol and some areas of Bavaria and South Tirol for $46.50 euros each.  We were off.

Mittenwald

That first post-crash day we took the train from Innsbruck to Mittenwald, just across the border in Germany.  There was a cable car there that I've been oogling since first seeing it in 2015.  Part of the attraction is simply to answer the question, why would anyone ever build a cable car up that mountain?  

It rises 4300 vertical feet.  There's no ski area at the top. However, there is a brewery and with a short winter walk with limited avalanche hazard, you can get a great view of the Karwendel Alps.

If you are so inclined, there is also a 400-meter long tunnel that they have carved through rock that will take you to an area you can ski tour.  

All and all a fun day.

Hahnenkamm

The next day we took the train to Kitzbuhel.  I figured if Erik couldn't ski the Streif, he could at least see it.  Turns out it wasn't skiable from top to bottom anyway.  Kitzbuhel is quite low and recent warmth had decimated the snow.  The "traverse" was closed and there was no natural snow at the bottom. 

We bought a pedestrian pass for the Hahnenkamm cable car, did a short hike at the top (there's some winter hiking that can be done up there, although I'd rather ski), and looked at the start house for the famed downhill.  


Sölden

That evening a friend in Innsbruck said we should go with him to Sölden tomorrow, so we did.  I went skiing while Erik rode cable cars there and in nearby Obergurgl.  Below is a photo from the Gaislachkogl at Sölden, which is just above 3000 meters.  


I'd never skied Sölden previously.  It has enormous relief, covering more than 6,000 vertical feet, high altitude glaciers, etc.  There's a lot of lower-angle skiing there, but also some great freeride terrain.


I took the longest run of my life to finish the day, covering more than 6000 vertical feet from the top of the Schwartze Schneid gondola, down the valley below to the base.  


Much of it was lower angle, and the final descent into Sölden was a mushy, terrifying white ribbon of death, but a PR is a PR.


So, my ski trip wasn't really over, but my son's?  We'll talk about that in a future post.  

Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Blog Break

 I'll be away from the blog for a couple of weeks.  Enjoy the snow and the March sun!

Sunday, February 25, 2024

How About Something Different?

Many people are likely suffering from spring fever this weekend with sunshine and mild temperatures along the Wasatch Front.  Saturday's high temperature at the Salt Lake City International Airport was 56F and the National Weather Service is going for 61F for today (Sunday).

Source: NWS.  Downloaded at 8:41 AM MST

Nevertheless, the snow held up fairly well at Alta yesterday, although I only skied until 1:30.  If you are wondering, the record high for today is 68 and for the month is 69 (set on Feb 28).  We should fall short of these. 

A look at that forecast though does show something "different" on top for Monday night when a surface cold front and upper-level trough will move through northern Utah.  The GFS forecast valid 0600 UTC 27 February (11 PM Monday night) is shown below, showing the front draped over northern Utah.


Mountain snow and some valley rain look to develop Monday afternoon. Snow levels will likely fall to the valley floor by about 11 PM. Most of the action looks to be overnight on Monday, although we could see a few snow showers during the day on Tuesday.  

Most members of our downscaled SREF are putting out 1–4" of snow for the airport.  


Our HRRR-derived snowfall product, which goes through 1200 UTC 27 Feb (5 AM MST Tuesday), is putting out 2.2" for the airport and 3.6" for Cottonwood Heights.  

Right now, the National Weather Service has a winter weather advisory up for 1 to 3 inches in the Salt Lake and Utah Valleys.  

Source: NWS.  Downloaded 9:08 AM 25 Feb 2024

Forecasts evolve, so keep an eye on things and plan your Tuesday commute accordingly.  For larger accumulations in the valley, the front would need to be more productive or stall, or the post-frontal environment on Tuesday will need to be more favorable than currently advertised by the models.