Ski day

We try to avoid skiing or climbing during the busy school holiday periods. However with still good snow cover after the thaw and calm sunny weather we had to spent the afternoon skiing at Cairngorm Mountain!
The queues weren't as bad as feared and once the hard snow had softened by mid-day the skiing was on a surface of lovelly spring snow.
A quick few runs on the piste and a very enjoyable run down the 'East Wall' and we we headed up onto Cairngorm's summit. Then down 'Coronation Wall' into the Coire Cas which was excellent.
We ended the day by skiing over and down the Coire Laugh More bowl which had softened just enough to make it fun! See the YouTube video here
Both these runs were firm though not too icy at the top and with lovely silky snow on the lower halves.
On the upper mountain you can still ski anywhere from Cairngorms summit with barely a rock in sight.
The return from Coire Laugh Mor now requires a few short heather hops and a 50 metre walk to the snow fence return route to the Ciste carpark.
The coires and gully lines above 6-700 metres still have plenty of snow but the climbing buttresses are now looking fairly black.

A sheltered spot

The winds closed the ski area today but fortunately it was dry overhead - underfoot was a different matter!

With high gusting southerly winds and a thaw being forecast we headed for a sunny sheltered spot.

Plenty of opportunity to look at navigation timing through thigh deep snow drifts and submerged tracks - 50 minutes a kilometre!

Lunch near the site of the old 'Stables shelter ' then a look at emergency ropework and security on steep ground on a steep slope of old hard snow.

On our slosh back the tracks and streams were flooded in many places and I was thankful of my over gaiters.

The low level snow has melted back from the forest trails but there's snow a plenty on the hills above 600 metres.

Whiteout then sunout!

Two and a half hours of hard slog through deep snow in a whiteout to get into Coire an t-Sneachda this morning.
We navigated our way into the coire sticking to the winding trail before taking a more direct line to our snowhole site through knee deep snow.
We talked about how easy it was to fall through a cornice in the current white out conditions and Neal gave an impromptu demo... Fortunately the landing was soft and ideally placed for digging our emergency snow shelters!
I had more or less given up hope of seeing anything until around 2.00 pm when the clouds parted and the sun shone.
The coire was stunning with vast areas of deep virgin snow everywhere. Half an hour later several groups of off-piste skiers had made there way over to the coire and where whooping there way down the virgin powder from the plateau, 'windy col' and even Aladdin's Couloir. See the YouTube video here.
A few climbers headed up Goat Track and possibly Red Gully but other than that the coire was fairly empty.
Many of the climbs are banked out with the Mirror Direct almost completely buried under the snow!

Easter Winter Skills

The main roads are more or less clear now and there's plenty of snow for forest and mountain skiing. Walking and trail breaking are hard going away from the well trodden trails and it took us almost an hour to cover less than a kilometre!
I didn't take the camera as I wasn't expecting such good weather. I was expecting heavy snow and poor vis but by mid-day it had turned into another warm and sunny day. We looked at avalanche assessment, route choice and ice axe and crampon use.
Fi has been out with the last of our winter's MoD adventurous training course for the Royal Navy and has a full report here