Fascination with snow – a mountain guide wants to understand the snow

If you want to know something about snow, you have to ask Hansueli Rhyner. As a ski coach, wax specialist and snow and avalanche researcher, Hansueli Rhyner has spent his whole life studying snow. Is it just a coincidence that his dog Hyvä looks like a snowball on four paws?

Delia Landolt: Hansueli, in the mountains, we are all on a first-name basis. Can you explain to us why snow is the most fascinating material of all?
Hansueli Rhyner: It comes in the form of super-light powder, as a doughy mass for making snowballs, as a hard-as-nails piste. But it is always the same material.

How is that possible?
Snow is a ‘hot’ material. Whether it is -20°C or almost 0°C, snow is always close to its melting point and changes very quickly. Yet we can still pick it up in our hands, which is not possible with any other material that is close to its melting point, because they are all glowing.

How can we observe this?
The colder a material is, the harder it becomes. At -30°C, a snow grain is almost as hard as a grain of sand. At -20°C, we have very light powder snow, which is great for skiing. The warmer it gets, the more pliable the snow becomes – perfect for a snowball fight.

When did you realise that snow fascinated you so much that you would dedicate your entire professional life to it?
I was working in the wax service of a ski company and realised that nobody really understood anything about snow.  There were opinions, rules, the belief that a ski should be fast – not all of it was true. As a mountain guide, many people thought that I knew more about snow. But I didn’t. I started to characterise the piste, to study the snow material.

And you used a magnifying glass to examine the size and shape of the snow grains. How did you continue to work on the idea of gliding on snow?
In the world of racing, everyone was talking about a water film that was supposed to form under the ski when gliding. I wanted to see this water film for myself. So I equipped a ski with temperature sensors – and failed miserably. Then the then-director of the Snow and Avalanche Research Institute (SLF) in Davos approached various companies with the idea of a joint project to find out more about gliding on snow. I was all in. Finally, we could ‘research’ the physics of snow, because the chemists at the wax company seemed to be stuck. Hansueli Rhyner stayed at the SLF until his retirement. Each of the 26 years was a learning year for him – they investigated freestyle tricks, winter tyres or snow blowers. The more he learned about snow, the more fascinated he became. The 67-year-old returns to the source of his enthusiasm with a question about his childhood.

You grew up in the Steinibach valley, in the very back of Elm, there’s hardly any snow deeper than that.
Yes, that was probably the case back then.

How has that shaped you?
My parents had a farm with seven remote barns. My father had to walk a lot, every morning and evening with 40 litres of milk on his back. Snow and the weather were therefore a daily topic. In winter, the only thing we children could do was to play in the snow and go skiing. But there were also avalanches – on the way to school, the rule was: ‘If an avalanche is coming, you have to kneel behind the street wall and wait until the dust has settled.’ Sometimes we had to stay at home because it was too dangerous. The young Elmer became a mountain guide, then a ski instructor – soon also in Australia, where he worked his way up the ranks with manual winches. Eventually, he toured the world as head coach of the New Zealand national team. Today, he is often accompanied by his dog Hyvä in the Glarus region.

Is it a coincidence that Hyvä looks like a snowball on four paws?
Of course not – a snow dog is simply the right dog for me! As hut warden at the Planura hut, we wanted a dog. Sled dogs are the only ones that do not get eye problems in the snow. However, they are not suitable for a hut, with the exception of the Samoyed dogs. Hyvä is now my third dog of this breed, and no other breed would do.

What are the special snow conditions in the Glarus region?
Because we are often in so-called ‘stau’ conditions on the north side of the Alps, there is usually more snow at higher altitudes. We often have good conditions for ski touring. This, among other things, makes the Glarus region a paradise for ski touring.

How does your knowledge affect your ski touring?
I know when or why the snow sticks to the skins. (laughs) But I also know about avalanche processes. No book is as interesting as observing the snow while you’re skiing. The fascination of how it will change over the next few hours and days is with me almost every step of the way.