Sunny and cooler

Zoom photo of Coire an Lochain around 16:00 hrs on Friday 4th April 2008

Zoom photo of Coire an t-Sneachda around 16:00 hrs on Friday 4th April 2008
Despite the two days of warm temperatures all the main gullies are brimming full of snow and will freeze solid over the weekend. There's even some snow still on the big ledges of some of the buttress routes with ice in places. With the cold northerly winds the cliffs should rime up quickly to provide good mixed sport by next week. The easy to middle grade gullies north facing gullies should be excellent as long as they are being wind scoured by the north winds. Wild over the weekend though with significant snow being forecast right through to next weekend and the summer...!

Just received an email from Mark who did a winter mountaineering course with us in February with his dad, Simon, uncle Steve and cousin Alex. Simon and Mark returned again in Easter to put into practise everything they had learned and by the sound of it had a very enjoyable and successful trip. See Marks blog at http://sirmarkrankine.blogspot.com/

It's also worth looking at Mark's excellent artcle on his first outdoor lead at http://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/page.php?id=643. We look forward to reading Mark's article on his first winter lead...

I've also uploaded another video from Wednesday of Al and Derek on the Mirror. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jr1QfeOrC_I