Cairngorm ski road rage, deep snow and fallen trees

Since the last update there's been snow showers on and off over the past 24 hours...
After listening to the chaos and queues on the Cairngorm ski road this morning I went for wander round my local tracks.
I gave up on my orginal objective up on the hill as progress was very slow and tiring through the thigh deep heavy snow. The skis helped in places but were still very hard work due to the metre deep snow and fallen trees.
The weight snow has brought down lots of branches and has uprooted several trees. The snow cover is complete from forest to hill with cornices and snow aretes (that's at low level!) though needs a few more days to firm up to support the skis near the surface!
If travelling on foot it's waist deep in places and quite dangerous if you don't know what's underneath or know the terraine well.

More snow today and some large drifts forming

There has been a fair bit of fresh snow today and this evening with some deep drifts forming on sheltered southerly and easterly aspects. Travel on foot is extremely difficult in the blizzards and bottomless thigh deep powder. By car it's very difficult too!!
If skiing or driving be very wary of what's actualy under the powder snow as many of the roadside fences, drainage ditches, streams and lochans are completely buried. BTW some cars and four-wheel drives have been driving and parking in very silly places at the side of the road... At Glenmore Loch Morlich is covered in fresh snow though the ice is likely very thin...!
There a very high Cat 4 avalanche risk at the moment. See http://www.sais.gov.uk/page_northern%20cairngorms.asp
For driving conditions see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Hi_ffqXB0c

Great snow cover and Nordic skiing at Slochd

Deep snow cover and great cross country skiing in the forest trails. Hard work trail breaking though it was well worth it on the run back down through the snow laden forest to my cottage at Slochd. We met Adam and his partner breaking trail so we went round the tracks anti-clockwise and Adam and partner went round clockwise we met in the middle and had a good slide down each others pisted trail...! It's nice to be able to ski from your front door!!

We've been round the upper trails so tomorrow the upper tracks should be fantastic though we need some trail breakers cum pisters for the lower tracks. The old A9 has not been cleared of snow so snow tyres and chains are usefull.

See the YouTube video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sNASM5YRqU

Over a foot of fresh snow this morning at my house!!

Woke to over 35 cm of undrifted fresh snow at my doorstep...!
The A9 at the Slochd summit was closed until about 11.00am this morning so I had to clear almost half a metre of snow from the car and put on snow chains onto the snow tyres. Everything was going great until I got to within 15 metres of the A9 to where the snow ploughs had piled up the deep snow across the old A9 road junction hence the swearng - I wasn't happy!! I had to dig for over half an hour through the compacted snow to get onto the new A9 just as it was re-opened on one lane for a convoy going north. I kept the snow chains on until Carrbridge and by Aviemore the main A9 road was almost clear. See the You Tubevideo at hilttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ac2CGnvZaIo
Skiing should be great so we're out in the forest now. More photos later.. :-)

Lots of snow falling today!

As the title says! A bit more and it could be good for x-country skiing.

No real snow show yet...

A fair bit of fresh snow in sheltered location though many areas are still wind scoured and icy ? We're still waiting for the really really big dump of snow to low levels that's been forecast though it now looks like we might get more on Wednesday....

Bitterly cold E to SE wind

Mistier and windier than expected with a strong wind chill factor. It certainly felt a lot colder today though fortunately the winds were less gusty than yesterday.

I had Peter and Martin with me and Fi kept company with us on the walk in and up onto the Cairngorm to Ben MacDui plateau. Conditions were good for crampon practise though you wouldn't want to trip as the snow was quite icy in places and would be difficult to self arrest on. This gave us the opportunity to look at emergency rope-work.

See http://www.marmotte.co.uk/blog/diary.html

We later walked across Coire Domhain and dug a few emergency shelters just as some snow showers arrived.

Climbing condition were excellent and the Northern Corries routes were very busy with long queues on many of the popular starred climbs. With the forecast snow fall climbing conditions will change rapidly and many areas will likely have a high avalanche risk. See also http://saisncairngorms.blogspot.com/