Minus three all day and a full moon just now making for a bumper weekend ahead.
Folks have been wading through slushy snow to find ice high in the Northwest Highlands, Skye and also Glencoe.
Fresh snow down to 700m will make for some battling leads over the next few days.
Anticyclonic gloom today but there is plenty of good ice and brittle snow to climb here.
Aonach Beag Saturday 6th April 2013
Was Steall as quiet yesterday? Sgurr Finnisg-aig below Nevis Range.
Easter Monday 2013. Point Five finally empty after weeks of happy hooking.
Gardyloo Buttress good for another month(?) with the fallen block chimney beyond the Tower’s Eastern Traverse completely buried.
Maybe folks are tiring of such things? Why the early season hysteria if we’ve no stamina for resisting the call of summer?
I suspect there’s more money than truth behind this latest information explosion.
Glencoe offers some stunning ice just now. This from Saturday.
Strong rime ice, verglass and windpacked snow from Argyll to Skye.
Happy Easter everybody!
Aonach Mor E Face, Thursday 28th
Wednesday 27th March, Crowberry Tower
Tuesday 26th March, W Face Aonach Mor
Roughburn, 25th March
Sunday 24th March, Coire Beith
Anyone else looking west for meteors tonight?
Confirmation of faceted crystals forming at depth by the SAIS this week.
As temperatures rise (slightly) towards the weekend this could see more instabilites catching folks out.
Each year we see more backcountry touring and steep off piste adventurers near the resorts. Thankfully we don’t have the increasing number of snowmobiles that has prompted wider avalanche education abroad.
The West Highlands have a much more extensive base of old neve this year and locals are looking forwards to a much longer season than last year certainly. To enjoy supposedly easy spring conditions we need confidence in our daily judgements, especially when less common climate regimes affect our sliding surfaces. Southern media may urge us to look to summer pursuits but we have many weeks of snow and ice left yet!
Thanks to Mark for the view from Roybridge earlier this week.
You’ve seen this before, I guess:
http://www.yr.no/place/United_Kingdom/Scotland/Ben_Nevis~2641744/long.html
Glencoe and Nevis Range received even more fresh than expected today.
Reasons to be cheerful…
Easy Gully skiable (12-4pm?) (this is not easy gully) Path on R.
Hooking slots and matching feet to hands is all good fun on starred routes amongst the obvious convexities following the best February since the nineteenth century. Consider a large bore screw for those Emmental belay stances!
One falling leader reported picks ripping through at 900m today. Visiting Italians suggest you can pick your line over the Orion Face tomorrow.
Past my bedtime…
Ribbed Walls, Aonach Mor. Imagine what’s round the next corner…
However, this week following other teams up starred routes is unnecessary. There is good ice the height of the crag and strong slab exits to most (neglected) lines to the North of the Twins too.
Orion dreamers sleeping through 3am alarms, Minus One’s in fine shape.
Some might say winter’s going off like a frog in a sock, whilst others think of the end: one more week of high pressure followed by snow, sun and maybe only a little light rain ’til May?
Meanwhile on the front of the hill, champion sugar snow, snowmaking going well, and visiting ski tourers skinning up in under half an hour!
