Pretty wild on the hill this morning. Blowing about 60-70 mph at 1000m.

Forecast is for the wind to go round to the NW and stay fairly strong with quite a lot of snow.

Looks wintery for the first few days of the New Year at least!

Up the Ben

Getting colder again with some fairly heavy snow showers up the Ben today. The snow is lying to around 550m. Up higher, there is about 10-20 cms of fresh snow lying on the old snow surface. The old snow hasn't quite refrozen and doesn't consistently support your weight.
There were a few teams out today, but mostly folk were messing about in the corries.
The photo is looking up Zero Gully, which had the usual stream of spindrift pouring down it. Looks like on Sunday, there will be a brief thaw/freeze cycle early in the afternoon which should help to improve conditions a bit, although it will also cause a brief period of avalanche activity.

Not a nice morning.

It was not a very nice day on the hill today. Mild temperatures and heavy rain meant the snowpack was disappearing rapidly (it also meant I got very wet). Cornices collapse and rock fall were the main hazards observed today. Winter is forecast to return tomorrow in which case the saturated snow already on the hill will freeze solid to produce good neve.

Nice Morning

A fresh dusting of snow last night was blown about on a strong wind this morning. Here (top) it is seen being blown up and over the Nid Ridge on Aonach Mor. Shown below, a SAIS observer has abseiled over the cornice and is digging a snow pit to investigate the snowpack.

Weather update

Unexpected heavy snowfall started in Lochaber around 2.30 pm today Wednesday. The Lochaber Snow and Avalanche Report had already been issued with a Low Category 1 Outlook. Due to a server outage on Gmail, we are unable to update local versions of the Report. If snowfall continues the hazard Category in Lochaber will increase to at least Moderate Category 2.
SAIS Co-ordinator

Not much change up there. The snow is still frozen pretty much everywhere so should give some good climbing in the easy grade gully lines on the Ben. Bit too cloudy today for any decent photos - sorry!

Looks like it might be turning a bit wet for a while during Thursday

It was another beautiful day above a sea of cloud today. The snow that remains is very icy and well bonded. There is some snow and ice in the higher gully lines, as this picture looking up Observatory Gully on Ben Nevis shows. Otherwise the rock is cold but dry. Rock climbing would have been a (rather chilly) possibility on Ben Nevis today.

Beautiful day above the clouds!

There is a temperature inversion, with temperatures of about +6°c above 600m. Because the relative humidity is low, the snow remains frozen. At 9am this morning, the relative humidity on the summit of Aonach Mor was 16% which means that the snow thought the temperature was -11°c, thus the frozen snowpack.

This is of course great news for anyone who likes walking about on crisp snow with crampons on. All the old snow in the main gully lines also remains frozen, and it looks like it will remain like this for the next few days. Happy Xmas!

Up the Ben today after yesterdays thaw and it looks farily depressing. The general snow level is now much highter than last week. Have included a couple of photos; One of the crags in general and the other taken from the bottom of No5 gully looking down towards the CIC hut. The snow on Aonach Mor today has a good refrozen surface layer which is pretty firm to walk/ski on. No reports of what the neve is like but it may be slowly improving.

Very wet on the hill today. Rain at all levels and a wet snowpack.
Hopefully tomorrow it should dry up again but it doesn't look too promising for climbing at the minute

Today we manged to get this shot of the crags in Coire an Lochain before the clag came in. Despite some mild temperatures over the last few days, the crags are still looking quite wintry. Most of the gully lines are complete, however large cornices are found at the top of some routes.

Aonach Mor above the clouds

A lovely day on Aonach Mor, with a thick layer of cloud in the glens. Unfortunately we left the camera battery in the charger and so cannot show you what a great day it was. A photo of part of the Ben from near Nevis Range in the late afternoon will have to suffice. It does illustrate the loss of snow from mid altitudes.
There is still a considerable amount of snow on the upper slopes near summit level.

During today, the freezing level has slowly risen to around 1200m. Some of the lower altitude snow has melted with about 10cm disapearing from the 650m level. Some good skiing to be had above 850m. Sorry, no photos today due to the poor visibility!

Sunny day on Aonach Mor

Fab day on the hill today. No wind and no people!

Some interesting cornices starting to develop above the crag (see photo)

Quite extensive avalanche debris in the corrie and along the East side of Aonach Mor, some of the debris extending down to around 900m (photo). This was all probably from Saturday evening/early Sunday.

Also visible was evidence of a fairly large slab avalanche on Carn Mor Dearg.

A couple of pictures from up the Ben today.
The snowpit one shows the weak slab layer which is present on many of the aspects above 1000m where windslab has formed. This was quite an easy shear despite the fact the snowpit was done in the corrie. At the tops of some gullies, the stability will be poorer.

The other pretty picture, shows the conditions/snow cover in Coire na Ciste, between No2 and No3 Gullies

Up the Ben

On the Ben the major gully lines seem complete (see point five in picture). However the quality of the ice unknown. There is large areas of neve high up. It was quite a wild day today with some heavy snow showers. No-one was observed climbing. Lots of avalanche debris from the previuos few days was observed in Obseravtory gully.

Winter is here!

Well winter is definitely here. Up on Aonach Mor today with fairly strong westerly winds and heavy snow showers. Reasonable cover above 800m with fairly good accumulation for the time of year.

On the summits the wind has created fairly widespread neve patches.

Abseiled into the top of Left Twin and the neve here is good, although there were widespread accumulations of shallow windslab here also.

This fuzzy picture is to show you that winter is here! Its a picture of the crag on Aonach Mor.

Off up the Ben tomorrow with the camera to see what is happening there.