Cold and wintry since last weekend

It's been cold and snowy since last weekend with snow flurries and biting northerly winds even in Aviemore's high street!

Higher up in the mountains the old snow has frozen hard bringing many of the easy to mid grade routes in the Northern Corries into good winter climbing condition. All the main gullies remain complete including some of the ice lines. Watch out for the sizeable cornices on some routes. It looks as though many of the north facing crags and gully routes have been scoured although care will be required due to cross loading

Over in the Loch Avon basin the loch and the higher Loch Etchachan are still frozen from December. In the main basin most of the sun exposed south facing climbs (apart from the big gullies) had been stripped back to bare rock before the recent snow - unstable wind slab now highly likely on southerly aspects!

The fresh snow has improved the skiing where it's not been blown away and scoured down to hard ice by the strong north westerly winds!