Back to Rain

Rain at all levels has soaked the snowpack. Taking todays observations was a rather damp affair.

Winter today!

It felt a bit more like the real thing today, although looking at the forecast it is unlikely to last!

Any ideas who made this track that we spotted?



Views of the crags on Aonach Mor

A bit more Wintery

Moderate overnight snow has deposited up to 50cm of fresh snow on high easterly aspects. This combined with some hoar frost and low teperatures made it feel quite wintery on the tops. A chilly looking John enjoys his sandwiches outside the ski patrol hut on Aonach Mor.

Not much new snow

This is a photo taken up the main ski lift on Aonach Mor at around 950m. It gives you an idea of the amount (how little!) fresh snow we got last night. The old underlying snowpack was just starting to freeze at this level.

Rain again

View looking up towards the Ben this morning. The snow line is going up fast!

Xmas Eve

The disgusting weather of last night has been replaced by slightly cooler conditions today with some light fresh snow accumulations. There are no significant new snow accumulations yet. Looks like a nice day in prospect for tomorrow for a pre diner stroll!

The cold settled conditions continue.

The cold and frosty conditions continue in Lochaber. Some great examples of surface hoar crystals were observed today (see picture). These very delicate crystals often form on the surface of the snowpack in cold and settled conditions. They are common in alpine areas, and when buried by subsequent snowfalls act as very weak layers. However as these crystals were observed around the Nevis Range car park, but not on the hill, they are unlikely to produce a significant avalanche hazard. One of the greatest hazards at the moment is a slip on some of the large areas of water ice which have formed on some hillsides.

Cold Nights

After a cold night, Monday was another sunny day on Ben Nevis. There is not much snow about, but what there is is very hard and icy. Water courses are starting to freeze in the frosty nights.

Limited snow cover on Ben Nevis

Unfortunately, it was a long way up Coire na Ciste before finding enough snow to dig a decent snowpit.

Snow is mainly confined to ledges and some of the easy gullies. No 2 and No 3 Gullies have snow runs below them as can be seen from these photos. Some ice streaks are present.

First day of the season

Today was the first day of avalanche observations in Lochaber. On the East face of Aonach Mor there is a reasonable amount of snow, but the buttresses are all black after some mild temperatures during the past few days. At higher altitudes the surface of the snowpack has frozen due to a slight overnight frost.

Reports coming soon!

The first report of the season will be out on Friday 14th December

Winter is over

In case you hadn't already worked it out, winter is now over! Will be back on the 15th December

The lochan on Aonach Mor today

Spring conditions on the East face of Aonach Mor.

Here is today's picture of the crags on Aonach Mor. Not much ice left here due to continual exposure to the sun over the past few days. The best climbing remains high on the Ben

It was a perfect spring day on the hills today. Where the sun is shining directly on the slopes, there are some surface instabilities, see photo of Aonach Mor below. Otherwise the stability is excellent. Still huge quantities of perfect ice high on Ben Nevis.

Small Rounds

The snowpack presently consists of old, hard, icy snow which is overlaid in some areas by softer snow which fell yesterday. This newer snow primarily consists of small rounded particles. The pictures show some of these small rounds lying on a 1 mm grid. They are formed by snow flakes being broken down into small piece as they fall out of the sky or bounce along the ground in windy conditions. This type of snow is very common in the Scottish hills.

Winter conditions return on Aonach Mor

The spring-like weather and bright sunshine disappeared today and winter conditions returned to Aonach Mor.

More sunshine

This morning gave more stunning weather in Lochaber. It has clouded over a bit now (1.30pm), the first signs of some slightly less settled weather.

Bright and sunny again!!

Another bright sunny day in Lochaber.

Where exposed to the heat of the sun the snow softened considerably. This affected many of the routes on Aonach Mor.

Here two climbers complete Left Twin.

Cloudy Morning

This morning was cloudy,
this blocked out the sun,
The snowpack remained frozen,
It's category one.



As my poetry suggests this morning was cloudy, with summit temperatures hovering about freezing. The snowpack was generally frozen and well bonded. The picture shows yesterdays attempt to photograph rounded polycrystal grains found on a sunlit slope. It can be observed that the individual grains are bonded into a single polycrystal. This type of crystal may be observed in a wet form when there is some water between the grains (such as in the picture) or in a frozen state such as this morning. In general this type of snow is quite stable.

Sunny Days

The sun is shining,
the sky is blue,
the snowpack is mostly stable,
it's category two.

A lovely day to be on Ben Nevis

A bright settled day brought many climbers out to Ben Nevis. As can be seen from these 2 photos many routes in Coire na Ciste were attracting attention today.

Sunny and warm on the summits today. Any snow that is in the sun has softened up considerably, e.g. the tops of the routes on Aonach Mor. Stuff in the shade remains relatively hard. Ice conditions remain good especially on the Ben. Little change expected over the next 24 hours with the snow remaining frozen above 1000m in the shade.

Good Ice

After overnight rain, dry conditions were experienced during Thursday. Unfortunately it was cloudy this morning so I didn't get any good pictures. The snowpack is consolidating in these settled conditions. With good weather and some great ice expected, it could be quite busy on Aonach Mor and Ben Nevis this weekend. Beware of climbing behind other teams (as you will get hit by lumps of ice) and remember there are loads of great, more obscure routes to be done.

Up the ben today
Picture of a team on Orion Face:

Quite a surprising amount of low altitude ice has come back (although will probably fall down tomorrow). Here is a picture of the Curtain:


Found some significant deposits of graupel in the snowpack (a layer about 30cm thick) below No5 Gully.

Graupel

Lots of graupel (sometimes called soft hail) fell on the hill today. The picture shows some of this graupel on a snow card. The grid in the centre is 2mm. Graupel is formed by the heavy riming of particles by accretion of supercooled water. When buried by additional snow fall it can create instabilities by acting like a layer of ball bearings. With snow showers forecast for the next few days this is likely to occur.

Need I say more??
It does look like it will get cold again tonight ans snow!

It has been a wet couple of days. Heavy rain and mild temperatures have soaked the snowpack and made cornices unstable. In the picture the crown wall of an avalanche on the East side of Aonach Mor, at an altitude of about 1000m, is investigated. This avalanche occurred sometime yesterday (Wednesday) and, as shown by the large nick out of the skyline, was due to cornice collapse. As the temperature drops during Thursday, all this wet snow it likely to become very firm and icy.

Very poor visibility on the hill this morning with the temperature hovering around freezing at the summits. The snowpack has consolidated since yesterday and is now getting fairly sticky.

Below is a photo of todays action. Either somebody has lost a contact lens or they are digging for gold.

Pretty horrible up the Ben today. Rain below about 650m. Quite a bit of fresh unstable windslab developing up high with several largish natural avalanches reported in the Corrie.

Getting warm again tomorrow with the freezing level going to summit level. This will produce a period of avalanche avalanche activity during the day.

It has been back to wind and rain for the past two days. The snowpack is presently very wet at all levels. However colder temperatures and some fresh snow is forecast for tomorrow. This should improve climbing and skiing conditions.

Winter is back again today. Plenty of drifting and fresh windslab development going on above 800m.
Numerous natural surface slab avalaches observed on Aonach Mor today. Probably a similar story on the Ben today. Anyone see anything??
Tomorrow looks like a washout again. Summit temperatures will be about +3°c and the rain is back. Initially there will be a period of high instability as the temperature goes up. Not a good day to be outside!
Below is the surface profile at a double crownwall

The bad weather that was predicted for today came in a little later than expected. This meant for a few hours Ben Nevis was bathed in sunshine. However, strong Westerly winds blew spindrift about the mountain. This can be seen in the bottom picture on Carn Dearg. The ice conditions around the Observatory Gully area looked good (top picture). However one team backed off Point Five Gully reporting continual spindrift avalanches on the chimney pitch.

Strong winds and heavy snow last night have deposited loads of snow onto North and East aspects near the top of the mountain. Fresh avalanche debris was observed in Coire an Lochan and Coire Dubh of Aonach Mor. The stormy weather we have been experiencing should be improving the climbing conditions, but caution and careful route choice advised with the current snow conditions.

A lot of snow has fallen above 800m in the past few days. Tonight the freezing level is suppose to rise to 1500m, drop to 900m by dawn, then rise to 1200m during the day. All this freeze thaw should consolidate the snow, and generally improve climbing conditions.

Another wintery day on the hill over here. There was quite a lot of wind transportation going on from the summit plateaus and several natural slab avalanches observed to the south of Easy Gully on Aonach Mor. Cornice collapse also seemed a popular activity today!
Tomorrow looks pretty bad. Late morning the freezing level will start to rise above the summits and the rain will start again. To make matters worse, the wind is expected to pick up to around 90mph on the summits later on Sunday. The warmer conditions will bring a period of high instability and avalanche activity on many steep slopes around lunchtime so please be careful!
If anyone sees and avalanche activity/fresh debris this weekend on the Ben, please feel free to drop me an email with details. Address at top of Blog

Should get colder tomorrow!

It was a great day on Ben Nevis yesterday with both guests and hosts on the BMC International meet enjoying good conditions on the likes of Albatross, Psychedelic Wall, Gargoyle Wall, Smiths Route, Green Gully, Comb Gully etc. Today however, was a very wet day with low cloud and heavy rain right up to summit level (see picture) . However with cold temperatures forecast for later in the week, the ice conditions are only likely to improve high on the Ben.

Great conditions up the Ben today. Loads of folk out enjoying the great conditions including blue sky! Picture today is of Green Gully.

Tomorrow it looks like it is going to go all wrong again. Heavy snow is forecast overnight followed by heavy rain during Tuesday. Should provide some ideal avalanche material. The wind is going to increase to around 70mph during the day aswell so it sounds like a good day to avoid going outside.

Not much change up there today. The snowpack is damp on the summits. The forecast that we have for tomorrow looks like there will be cooler air coming in which should refreeze all of the existing snowpack. No significant new snow is expectd so conditions should improve. It remains to be seen however what the weather actually does....

Fairly warm today, with the snowpack continuing to consolidate. Over 100 climbers/walkers up Aonach Mor today so it must still be winter!

The freezing level dropped to below summit level overnight. Today the snowpack was frozen solid and is stable. The colder temperatures will encourage further ice build up on the highest ice routes. Conditions on high up routes like Smiths Route, Indicator wall, Two Step Corner, Green Gully etc. are reported as good. Unfortunately thick mist when we were on the hill this morning prevented any good pictures from being taken.

Conditions on the Ben still seem quite good despite the warm temperatures. You can pretty much get into the Coirre without touching any snow but above the Lochan there is full cover. Many teams out there today heading up into the mist. Photos today are of whats left of the Curtain and Garadh Gully

West is Best.

It was another lovely day on Aonach Mor, and it was good to see plenty of people out enjoying the conditions. A climbing legend from Aviemore way was spotted on the summit, and heard saying that conditions here were better than in the Cairngorms, as they have been all season. Just goes to show that, this year at least, West is best. However the down side of these good conditions is that the crags can get very busy. Quite few injuries (none too serious) were sustained yesterday by people falling off. So remember kids, winter climbing is a cold, dangerous and utterly pointless activity.

It was a busy day on Aonach Mor as this picture of Easy Gully shows. The snow has refrozen, and alot of the easy and mid grade routes look to be in reasonable condition.

Wet Day

Today was a wet day. The freezing level was above summits and it rained. Avalanches activity was noted on Ben Nevis. Cooler temperatures are forecast for the weekend. This further improve the climbing conditions on the higher ice routes.

Avalanche Day.

Snow conditions were very unstable today with many natural and triggered avalanches occurring. The picture shows natural avalanche debris on the Back Track area of Aonach Mor. The situation was the same on many North East facing slopes. With mild conditions and rain forecast for tomorrow things are likely to get even more unstable.

There were plenty of people out enjoying the sunshine and good conditions. The picture shows a climber near the top of Left Twin. The fresh snow of the past few days has not bonded well to the old, hard snow ice. The greatest hazard tends to be on Northerly aspects where deposits of fresh snow overlies the hard snow.

The winds were still blowing quite strong from the South/South-East this morning, depositing fresh unstable windslab in sheltered locations. I would suspect there would be quite a bit of unstable snow forming in Observatory Gully at the moment, but I have not been there to verify this (nor am I planning to!)

Several teams heading up Aonach mor this morning. The crag should certainally have been blown clear of any fresh snow!

Photo is from 900m on Aonach Mor, between the gusts.