Messing around in the Bohemian Forest and Eastern Alps

[Bohemian]

The season has now also kicked off big time in the Bohemian Forest!
Last week (before the big dump) Tuesday I went to check out "Little Japan" (lovely easy tree runs through beeches) and continued towards the top but had to turn back not far above the beeches as breaking trail on loose snow over berry shrubs was a bit of a fight and it was getting late.. 60cm at 1000~1150m, no base but didn't touch stones.
Next day @Roman , Vlad & I went round to the Austrian side for a tour from/to Schwarzenberg: lovely powder! 65cm at 1000-1100m.
Friday it started snowing cats & dogs for a long time: until about midnight Fri-Sat wet & heavy snow but also at 500m towards saturday morning it was all dry and fluffy, and lots of it : even in our town (500m above sea) we had at least 40-50cm by saturday 09:00. 30cm on top of cars that were cleared of snow Friday late evening.
Instead of going for a ski hike behind our building I went back to the Austrian-Czech border area, wanted to check out Little Japan: yeah yeah, even on the meadow above the car park (820m) it took me 2h to break trail over barely 1.5km... and running out of daylight soon, so had to turn back early.. anyway, good exercise.. ..and the next skier(s) can thank me for the trail with beer.. I now understand why Finnish hunters use skis of 3m!
Meanwhile in lower areas both in Bavaria and in CZ they had plenty problems with wet sticky snow on power cables and trees: in most of Bavaria all trains were cancelled and Munich airport was closed for at least 24h! 40cm snow in the centre of Munich! High avalanche danger all over the Alps.
But what a nice season start!
Lets hope the base settles and we don't get too much thaw weather.
Pictures coming asap!

[Jurassien]

But what a nice season start!
Lets hope the base settles and we don't get too much thaw weather.

Unfortunately, the thaw is already on its way. In this neck of the woods we have +11°C predicted for next week – that’s almost warm enough for the grass to start growing again. It’s westwind weather with the snowline rising to 2200m. As is often the case, the first “Wintereinbruch” doesn’t hold its promise. The main ski resorts have just had a bumper weekend, but I think the euphoria will evaporate fairly rapidly.

I’m off to Mont Soleil (Jura) on Thursday, but just for loipe touring – and I expect that to be the last feasible XC-day for a while.

By the way, I like your signature quotation from Werner Munter. So many folks go on a weekend avalanche course and come back thinking they have learned all they need to know about avalanches.

[Bohemian]

G'day folks! Apologies for not posting more pix & trip reports. Will try to find time to put that right. Last ski hike of last "season" was in JuNe in the Alps: still nice enough above 2100m then but the melting was setting in very rapidly, nice but conditions to stay well away from anything steeper than 30°.
But: last week Thursday til Sunday we had a huge snow dump above 1500~1600m in the Eastern Alps! Extreme amounts of precipitation, extreme rain below 1500m: up to 400mm in 4 days in some areas... that is the equivalent of 4 metres of snowfall! I went to the Planneralm on Saturday 14 September: never had a season kick off this early!
Skiable snow right from the parking at 1600m. Didn't go higher than 1900m due to wind & poor visibility but no single stone contact According to the instruments closeby there was a good 80cm on Saturday morning with snow temp around 0°C, air temp just below 0. Wet & windy but fun! Long rainy 3h30' drive to get there and the same on the way back but worth the effort!
Less rain lower down would have been better: big floods in many areas... in 4 days we had more rain than otherwise in a whole month!
https://www.planneralm.at/ski-sport/skigebiet.html

[fisheater]

Wow! At 960 Feet elevation I can’t imagine that kind of snow this early. I glad you had fun. I really enjoy your posts, and your reports.
I’m hoping for a snowy winter too!
Thank you for posting

[randoskier]

The Stubai glacier has five lifts open.

[Bohemian]

Finally some local ski hikes! First local one of this season last saturday, mainly on the forest roads between Schoeneben and the Hochficht. Old rock skis (Atomic ARC 195) and leather boots. Nice cold snow, higher up at least half a metre, but skiable everywhere right down to the parking at 890m. Most of the way on blue grip wax, only used the skins for the last bit. The berry shrubs still cause some trouble here or there: with some thawing and refreezing we'll also have a solid base around/over these shrubs. Down at 600m there was only a tiny bit of snow dust. At 500m nothing at all. Let's see what the rest of the winter may bring.

[Bohemian]

Very weird winter here in the Bohemian Forest... Very dry most of the time with plenty frost. Excellent for ice skating, ice kiting, ice sailing etc though: lately there was a race on the Lipno lake for DN ice boats with 38 participants!
Together with a local buddy we've just now bought an old DN for ourselves: it will probably see its first use next winter.
By now I'm only on ski hike nr 8 + 5 days using lifts ; only 5 ski hikes done in our local area around the 3-country point CZ-A-D... And not once was it possible to start off below 900m. Usually I park my car at 800~850m + a few trips from 750m and the odd 1 or 2 in our village from/to 600m... Only once this winter (so far) I saw the kids sleighriding in front of our door at 500m in 2-3cm "snow"...
This time last year I was on ski hike nr 19 (including the Alps ; 11 local trips) despite an exceptionally warm period from around 20 January til late February) ; We're not even March and below 1100m it's worse than crap! Up top at 1200-1370m it's like April-May in the Alps. As soon as you go below 1300m into the forest the snow is old muck especially on the forest roads: hard pack destroyed by pedestrians and snowshoers with slush and first open spots already at 1200m, months worth of bark, needles, twigs, branches on the snow everywhere and already at 1150m I had to take my skis off for passing open spots. Not worth it here even if we get another dump.
[Oh, and of course the bark beetles have had a feast on the CZ side despite the frost, or maybe it's the damage from the past year, dead and fallen trees everywhere: getting worse and worse, pretty dangerous in any bit of wind! On the German and Austrian sides it's not so bad with dead trees: the local monastries which own these forests, take care of them by removing beetle affected trees and planting new trees. Still too much spruce monoculture... On the CZ side apparently the greens have pushed through a kind of "laissez faire" policy: don't do anything and wait til nature revives itself + a few areas with newly planted beech trees for production. Result: all the marked paths and forest roads have become highly dangerous for falling trees + erosion ; The current production spruce forest was planted only about 400 years ago, this was not the original wild forest]
In the Alps it's been much drier than usual pretty much everywhere, too.
Looking at doing the odd day trip in the Dachstein & Eastern Steiermark areas after the carnival holidays + maybe later on a spring trip for high ski tours somewhere central in the Alps.
Hopefully next winter will bring plenty skiable snow locally!