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Friday 4 January 2008

More snow and closed snow gates

Snow fell overnight causing problems on the roads. This morning the ski road was closed for a time due to drifting snow on the link road.
It was later reopened only to be closed again later with cars and skiers evacuated, according to the BBC...! Good cover in the forest trails brought out many x-country as well as the evacuated alpine skiers...!
In the Alps, and a few years ago in Scotland this amount of snow wouldn't have caused any problems. Nowadays nobody seems to be able to cope with it...
On Cairngorm the snow continued drifting onto the ski runs and blocked the funicular tunnel! North facing aspects and gullies are continuing to fill up with soft deep windslab so best avoided. Other areas are wind scoured. See the Cairngorm SAIS avalanche forecasts.
This evening the A9 is closed at Newtonmore due to snow. No doubt only a few cm as opposed to a few metres that was normal in the past!
Over in the west there has been a lot less snow. Today Oli reported good climbing on White Shark on Aonach Mor. There was good ice, hard snow on the climb though with some fresh snow on the traverse to the foot of the crags. The cornice exit presented little problem on solid wind scoured old snow. This could all change tomorrow as the wind changes direction...!

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