Hinterer Grauspitz : Encirclement of Naafkopf from Steg

It was possible to reach the Ijesfürggli on the icy ridge without coming into contact with the windblown snow, but I was already feeling uneasy at all that wind. But the sunny slopes on the other side were untouched by the wind so I continued to the Hinter Grauspitz and began descending the East face, traversing a bit to the SE to follow a couloir of about 35 deg. At the top of this couloir, the right-hand side (East facing part) began to gently slide. There was not much snow involved (initially), and it all happened slowly, I was already to the left of the couloir. But it kept going for about 200m and so accumulated a fair amount of snow. Not so nice.

Rattled by this, I decided not to go back up to the Ijesfürggli from Balma, and continued to the Bartümeljoch. On the north side of that I found a lot of windblown snow, but thought that would improve lower down. I began descendint to Güfelalpe, under the Rote Wand. All went well until at 1950 m, right in the bottom of the valley leading to Güfelalpe, I triggered wind slab on a small ~35 deg section, but was not caught in it. The avalanche cone bunched together unpleasantly at the bottom of this gully, quite scary. The wind blows all the snow down this valley where it deposits at the bottom of the gully.

The rest of the tour was fine. Moral of the story: even a small amount of fresh snow can be dangerous in these spring conditions when it falls on the hard, and wind certainly doesn't help! Moral #2: if you trigger an avalanche, don't hang around to trigger another one, get off the mountain! I should have gone to Seewis and taken the bus.

6h45 - 14h15