Powder day on Schönberg

After multiple days of heavy snow combined with it being a weekend we knew that we were going to need to start early, after rejecting Rob’s idea of a 5am start, we agreed to meet at 7. It was lucky as 10mins after we arrived the car park was full!

We skinned from the cars, and headed up into the woods. The conditions in the morning were better than I was anticipating, and the ascent was actually warm without any wind. The path we took basically went straight up, but despite this it was fairly pleasant and more interesting than skinning up the route we took back down. As we approached the col below Schönberg, the cloud came in and the snow started. We assumed that it was set in for the day, however as we approached the summit we could see the sun through the clouds, and just before we set off on the descent the cloud cleared.

The descent started down a steep break between the trees, which gave no time for a warm up. But thankfully due to the excellent powder this was no trouble, and was great fun. As the gradient eased the powder improved and became delightful, we skied all the way back to the forrest with massive grins. It was the first time I have skied in proper powder, and it really is a lot of fun!

On the ascent we were commenting that we were not looking forward to the descent in the woods if we had to go down the way we were going up, but thankfully there was an easier path which zigzagged down through the woods. We just had to make sure to avoid everybody who was still coming back up.

After a wonderful descent, we skied all the way back to our cars and were back by 10am! It was certainly not a bad way to spend a morning, and definitely made up for the very early start!