Superb sun snow and ice

A hard frost, little wind, blue skies, sun and excellent climbing...

One of the best days of the season so far with superb firm snow conditions and good ice and a very alpine ambiance.

Despite the near perfect weather, snow and ice it was surprisingly quiet!!

I was guiding Chris and Fi on Patey's Route which had excellent neve and hard ice throughout apart from a few thin technical moves at the crux chockstones...

More details and photos on Fi's blog here and Chris's blog here

Winter skills and crevasses...

I was out with Colin, Amy and Iain today looking at basic ice axe and crampon skills.

It was a nice settled day with good firm snow conditions for cramponning across to and up Coire Laogh Mor. The snow has refrozen and is already quite icy in places. Over the next few days the snow will refreeze harder and harder making crampons and good technique essential even on quite moderate terrain and on the plateau. The remaining corrie rim cornices look stable but have interesting creep crevasses from the recent thaw...

End of school holidays and looking good for next week!

Photo courtesy of Cairngorm SAIS

It's been another very unsettled midterm holiday week with a big thaw on Wednesday and Thursday which has stripped much of the the lower hills and removed the rime from the high cliffs and plateau.
Despite this there's still good cover on the plateau and ski area although wind has affected uplift on most days apart from the cracker on Tuesday.
Some climbers have been less affected by the wind and recent thaw! Several gully routes were still being climbed despite loosening rocks, cracked, collapsing cornices and wet snow sloughs on Wednesday and Thursday!
The temperatures have started to drop today (Friday) with the snow pack starting to refreeze.
There's still great snow cover and ice in the Northern Corries and inner Cairngorms. With all the classic gullies still brimming with wet snow, climbing conditions will likely be excellent when it freezes over the weekend.
Unfortunately Ski conditions are likely to be a bit icy from Saturday onwards until the arrival of fresh snow - sharp edges, teeth and good suspension a must!!
The MWIS weather outlook for the coming week is excellent with cold settled high pressure conditions being forecast for next week and the end of the holidays!
"All mountain areas of Britain from Sunday, 27th February, 2011: On Sunday, a band of low cloud and patchy showery rain will push eastwards, will give poor conditions on mountain areas for 2 to 4 hours. Most of next week will then be dry with light winds on all mountain areas, as a large area of high pressure builds across Britain. Remaining snow on the Scottish mountain will remain in place with little further thawing. There may be a temporary break in the dry weather later Tuesday or Wednesday as a front edges in from the west, with the Scottish mountains most likely to have a lengthy period of low cloud, and patchy precipitation....MWIS Forecast issued 25th Feb 2011"

Thawing...

Mild and windy over the next few days until the refreeze and the weekend.

A lot drier and less windy than expected so Brian and I headed up the the summit of Cairngorm via Ciste Mhearid were we practised climbing cornices and had lunch in one of the snowholes.

It was quite icy in places as the soft covering of recent snow has melted off leaving the older grey blue icy layer.

The main gullies and high corries are holding the snow well but cornices are sagging and the buttresses very black with piles of rime shards at their bases!

Toothed ridge

It was a bright calm morning as Brian and I headed up Fiacaill Ridge. Conditions in the corries looked stunning with plenty of snow and heavily rimed rock.

I'd decided to save taking photos of the Sneachda crags so I could use them for a spectacular back drop later. Unfortunately the cloud descended as we roped up for the final difficulties on the most direct line - just as I was about to snap a few photos!

While my photos were spoiled by the mist Brian later confessed that he was more than happy that he couldn't see the cliff edges and drops!!

We returned over Cairn Lochain and Lurchers keeping well away from the large cornices that loomed out of the mist.

Birthday surprise

It was Nick' birthday on Sunday and Joanne had a surprise present for him....

She'd organised two days of private Winter Mountaineering instruction for them both!

We looked at everything from winter skills and snow shelters to winter ropework for our planned winter climb at a later date...

The weather was a lot better than Sunday with the wind dropping and the sun shining by the afternoon.

Stormy Sunday!

It was another windy day on Cairngorm with lots and lots of drifting snow. There are now some very deep drifts to low levels and that includes the ski area link road. This has been ploughed leaving a snow cutting of around one to two metres.

The ski area was again closed to skiers though a few climbers had battled into Coire an t-Sneachda to climb today. Apparently it was more sheltered in the heart of the corrie and a few teams had successfully climbed on the Fiacaill Buttress area.

Today Brian and I battled uphill from the Ciste to built some emergency snow shelters for lunch. We then practised the winter mountaineering skills needed for climbing Mont Blanc in July as we fought and stumbled up to the Ptarmigan area.

We headed back down via the Cas which was collecting lots of blown snow onto the lower slopes.

Stormbound!

Lots of drifting snow and a blocked ski link road!!!

Recent Winter Mountaineering course feedback on Maz's blog at http://www.journeymantraveller.com/2011/02/winter-mountaineering-in-cairngorms.html

More photos from Thursday

A real weather gift!

After all the unsettled weather today was a real gift from god - Morris is a man of the cloth and an Archdeacon!

It was quiet calm and sunny with an easy walk in and surprisingly good firm snow in the gullies.

I'd original postponed my climb with Morris in the hope that the weather would improve and it really did! Morris wanted to try something harder than the grade 1 needed for his winter ML and he did ;-)

The snow had consolidated a lot quicker than expected and the avalanche risk had reduced too. A lot of the routes are now well banked up and the first pitch of Patey's is now on steep snow as the short chimney start is buried.

Originally I'd thought that only the NE aspects would have been climbable but condition were a lot better than expected. We ended up climbing a buttress route 'Terms of Endearment' on the other side of the corrie rather than 'Invernookie'. We realised a guided party lead by Dave heading up towards Patey's Route weren't swimming up to their armpits so the snow must be better than expected!

Our mixed route was fun but required a lot of snow clearing off the slabby rock and to find gear placements. Morris isn't a climber but an experience hillwalker and scrambler and did really well to second the mixed pitches without cheating as I found them tricky. We then continued up the Mirror and Aladdin's Couloir on really nice snow with absolutely no cornice problems!

From our vantage point we saw climbers on the Mirror Direct, Patey's Route, The Seam and Opening Break but nobody had ventured into Jacob's Ladder judging by the huge cornice!

The views from the completely plastered white plateau were stunning. Some very large cornices especially so on NW aspects

Improving weather and deep drifts

Stormy this morning but the winds dropped quite a bit in the afternoon. There's lots of deep snow drifts for winter skills and skiing. Tomorrow looks fairly settled before the next storm and dump of snow that's being forecast for the weekend! See Fi's blog here

Cairngorm Ski Area Report Wednesday 16th February 2011
'Heavy drifting across the mountain this morning and high winds with near zero visibility at the top station. The wind started to ease at 10:30 allowing us to open the Car Park tow, Ridge Poma, Shieling and Coire Cas tows. The wind finally reduced enough to allow us to dig out the Funicular track by the end of the day. We have had some fantastic accumulations of drifted snow and the machines worked hard all day to groom the drifts out. The Gunbarrel is now completely flat along with the White Lady Piste, the lower slopes and Daylodge are also in fantastic condition again. Tomorrow all uplift will run subject to wind.
The upper lift opening times may be delayed due to controlled avalanche blasting, on both the Cas and Ciste sides of the mountain.
Yesterday the Ciste Gully and West Wall runs were kept closed due to a high avalanche risk, this will be assessed again by Ski Patrol, however these slopes have been heavily loaded with further drifting. There is now a High Avalanche risk from South- west through North to North- Easterly Aspects.
After a run of three windy days the forecast looks good for tomorrow- windspeeds 10-15mph with the chance of a sunny day!'

Drifting snow and big winds!

The weather has again been very stormy with lots of drifting snow, easterly winds and a high avalanche risk throughout the Northern Corries.
Fi and KC returned from an overnight snowhole expedition this afternoon and reported strong winds, poor vis, lots of big drifts of fresh windslab. The winds and snow increased later and the ski area closed completely!
Full details and photos on Fi's blog here
Morris R a Winter ML(tr) and regular client headed up Fiacaill Ridge today and found the easterly winds and blasting snow so strong that he had to head west away from Cairngorm. At times he was almost crawling over Cairn Lochain narrowly missing the cornices in the maelstrom...
I've seen and heard of several near misses with cornices and avalanches over the past few days and that's from experienced local climbers... We've now postponed tomorrow's planned climb for safer conditions later!

Less windy and snowy

A much nicer and drier day compared to Sunday though the hills were in the cloud for most of the day. Su and I headed up Fiacaill Ridge today passing the finish of yesterdays route which now had a bit of a snow arete at the junction. Now she actually saw it Su thought the ribs looked good and quite steep!

As we approached the upper ridge and the main difficulties the clouds lifted for a time to give us some excellent and photos of the parties in front. Several climbers were finishing Invernookie and Belhaven with the later being reported as well iced but lacking gear.

After reaching the top we headed over the plateau towards pt 1141 avoiding the avalanche prone descent slopes of the Goat-track. Visibility ranged from poor to complete whiteout so we kept the rope on just in case we walked over a cornice. Carefully navigating back to Coire Cas we kept well clear of the soft cornices and that includes the ridge descent from pt 1141.
I managed to get a view from a safe distance of the large cornices threatening the Forty Thieves and Jacob's Ladder areas.

Climbers finishing Aladdin's Couloir after completing Patey's Route reported a recent avalanche crown wall on the Mirror and Aladdin's area which was possibly the one we'd all heard yesterday!

Fi and KC are snowholing at the moment and reported great navigation conditions with large droopy soft cornices on NW aspects and more stable ones on NE aspects...