Foehn Havoc
The Lazidbahn gondolas running above Schalber Alm at Serfaus-Fiss-Ladis ski area in Tyrol, Austria.
Foehn winds blowing clouds and snow over the mountains.
Patience to play. With one of the main gondolas at the Serfaus base area closed today due to high winds, the line for the Komperdellbahn gondola was nuts by late morning. Notice the ski map billboard at upper right showing so many closed lifts!
As forecasted, the foehn continues to rip today here in Tyrol, with sustained 100 km/h (60 mph) winds at the higher parts of the Serfaus ski area. It seems that in Alps where most of the skiing is high above treeline, the winter winds are both my friend and enemy. On one hand most of the lifts were closed again today which was disappointing, and riding the gondolas was borderline scary at times, but on the other hand on certain aspects the wind had stacked last night's meager 2" of fresh snow into 6" of smooth carvable powder! I sniffed out four surprisingly sweet pow lines before all the crowds showed up.
With our time in Austria winding down, as I think back on all the great powder days I had this winter, actually not a lot of them were legit deep days; many of them were these kinds of sneaky powder days when the wind had worked its magic and buffed things out into creamy carving powder. So although the foehn winds are still annoying this week in Serfaus, at least there's some upshot to consider!
P.S. - Several hours after writing this, the sky is now beige with Saharan dust that has blown in with all this wind. 😞 Bad wind!