Stunning weather and snow conditions on Monday

The walk in to the coires was very alpine with solid snow underfoot, white plastered cliffs and blue skies and sunshine. Apart from a couple of "Lodge" groups and about a dozen or so climbers the coire was very quiet. We saw folk climbing on the Mess of Pottage, Mirror Direct, Wavelength, Spiral Gully, Goat Track or Red Gullies. The Trident Gullies were empty for a change though later on looking at the building cornices it looked as though the exits may have been worrying! Aladdin's Couloir was OK but some large droopy cornices were forming on Jacob's Ladder (see photo)

Fi and I climbed Fluted Buttress Direct which looked to be full of hard neve. Unfortunately the snow was fairly soft. There was very little usable ice or hard snow so the climbing was quite mixed using tenuous hooks in the rock with the occasional reassuring (thank god!) patch of neve or frozen turf. Good fun though especially the RH groove variation before the crest...

This evening the southerly winds picked up and huge amount of snow were being transported from the southern slopes and redeposited in the Northern Corries. This will make the great skiing even better but will create some massive cornices above some of the climbs... Will upload some videos later tonight or tomorrow...