Aonach Beag

Had a good little trip over to Aonach Beag today. Another nice day, but as can be seen in the pictures the first sign of a change in the weather can be seen out to the South-West. It is forecast to be milder on the summit of Ben Nevis tomorrow than at sea level on the South East coast of England. Terrible!

Looking south from the summit of Aonach Mor to Aoanch Beag.

About to head down to the col with Mamores and the hills of Glen Coe in the background.

Looking back from the col to Ben Nevis and Carn Mor Dearg.

Heading home via Summit Gully and Coire an Lochan.

Beautiful winters day.

Cornices and steep snow making the exits from some of the routes on Aonach Mor quite tricky at the moment.

When Easy Gully, the usual way to access the routes on Aonach Mor is hazardous, the routes can still be reached by abseiling down Central Buttress as these climbers are doing. Note the avalanche and cornice debris lower down.

The crags of Coire an Lochan of Aonach Mor. If you look carefully you can see a crown wall running from below Forgotten Twin over to below Grooved Arete, and the debris running down and disappearing into the shadow near the bottom right of the image.

Back Coires

Oops some snow on the lens. A few people were out enjoying some good skiing in the back coires of Nevis range today. However, care need taken as there were some areas of poorly bonded snow as well as some large and fragile cornices about. We met a pair of climbers who got a bit of a fright when a large section of cornice at the top of Easy Gully collapsed as they approached it.

A change in the weather.

Lumps of ice dislodged by warming temperaturs and increased water levels floating down the Allt a Mhullin.

A view up into Coire na Ciste just before the weather closed in.

The Douglas Boulder through blowing wet snow.

A bit of a change in the weather today, with a fair bit of snow on the tops. Thanks to the team staying in the CIC hut for reporting their (rather exciting) snow stability observations this morning.

Another sunny and cold day on Aonach Mor. Climbers on White Shark

Winter on the Ben

Loads of parties climbing on many of the main lines today. If you look closely at the pictures you can see teams on Hadrians Wall and Point Five among other things

Where's all the snow gone?

Raised footprints, on a thin icy layer.

A few streaks of soft snow, with hard icy stuff left below.

If you look at the blog posts of a few days ago you will see that there was a fair bit of soft snow about. Unfortunately it has gone, blown off the mountain or sublimed back into the atmosphere in the strong winds. Oh dear.