Last week I had the pleasure of being and skiing at St. Anton in the Arlberg valley of Austria. Austria and the eastern part of the Alps have lots of snow right now. During my visit we had about 35cm of new snow. So it is important to take care when you go off-piste since the danger of avalanches is quite high at the moment. On Sunday morning the snow level was meassured at 216cm at an altitude of about 2000 meters.
Fortunately we also had some fine sunny days last week that provided great powder conditions. The resort of St. Anton has a good concept of creating marked off-piste ski runs. These runs are not groomed or patrolled, but they are fairly safe from avalanches if you stay within range of the trail markers.
This is a fine safe ski concept. Other resorts should consider doing the same since it makes off-piste and free-ride very accessible in a relative safe way.
/ASN
