Annapurna Couloir Skiing, Lahaul Exploratory Skiing – March 2023

6 April 2023 | 2051 | Islamabad, Pakistan | 540m (1770 ft)

Just closed out the month of March 2023 skiing in the Annapurna Himal of Nepal, and also skiing in the Lahaul Himalaya of India. In February 2023 I was skiing in the Kashmir Himalaya. This year in the Annapurnas, my fourth season skiing the Annapurna range, was classic. Good stability on all aspects allowed us to ski as steep of terrain as we were comfortable with. We also received weekly snow showers which kept the surfaces skiing soft and powdery. Always enjoyable.

Basically the daily weather pattern in the Annapurna range is days dawning clear, and then by mid-day convective clouds come into the range. This is a daily weather pattern that you can almost tell time with. Between 11 am and 1 pm the clouds come in each day. Sometimes they are just clouds, and they dissipate when the sun sets between 6 and 7 pm. Some days the clouds hold more moisture and they produce snow showers. Again this year we had this several times, depositing 5 to 30 cms of snow during each event. We also had thunder snow again this year, which is thunder and cloud lightning with graupel falling. This is rare in most mountain ranges, while it is quite common during late Winter and Spring in the Himalaya. We also experienced it last month in the Kashmir Himalaya.

After the Annapurna, I shifted back to India and went into the Lahaul And Spiti region to ski. It is excellent to return to this remote area after being closed out of adventuring here for several years due to the pandemic. There is now a tunnel to access Lahaul And Spiti in the Winter months, the Atal tunnel is 9 kilometers long and connects Kullu with Lahaul And Spiti. Historically we always drove over the Rohtang pass, and weren’t able to do so usually until late May or early June. I am here a bit early for snow stability, while friends are skiing plenty of powder on mellow slopes in the Kullu valley at the 4000-5000 meter elevation, here in Lahaul I have found a persistent slab problem that is causing widespread collapsing above 4000 meters.

Luke Smithwick skiing a couloir in the Annapurna range. March 2023.

Since all of the ski lines I have in mind in Lahaul are at the 4000-5500 meter elevation (and higher during altitude season), I will need to come back there in a month when stability is better with a Spring isothermal snowpack. I have skied some nice powder here currently but steeper skiing will need to wait. So for now, that’s my update. Where am I headed to now to ski? Stay tuned (!).

-Luke Smithwick

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