Mild and damp

Damp times, but still some pretty substantial patches of snow about.

Slight freeze on the tops

It was slightly colder overnight than it had been recently. Some rime ice had formed on grass and moss at higher levels (at about 1200 m in this picture). The snow cover at this level had an icy crust to it from the colder conditions.

There are a number of cracks about which have been created by cornices creeping and slumping the the mild conditions we have been experiencing over the past week. Although some sections of cornice have already dropped off, there are plenty more waiting for when the thaw resumes.

The thaw goes on

The spring snowpack was continuing to thaw at all levels today, as see looking over onto Carn Mor Dearg.

Ben Nevis: thawing at all levels.

19th March

The crags of Coire an Lochan. No climbers here today.

A group peak over the top of the chancer ski run. Note the size of the cornices above the crags to the left.

A couple of size 1 avalanches in Coire an Lochan. They released somewhere up in the crags above. We reckoned that one travel about 70m, and the other about 100m.

A sunny day at last.

Looking East over the Grey Coires.

Coire an Lochan of Aonach Mor.

Looking over to Carn Mor Dearg

On the tops, the South-Westerly winds were strong enough to transport the snow, and build fresh layers of windslab in sheltered locations. This is seen here at the top of an East aspect at an altitude of about 1200m.

Big snow fall

A three metre avalanche probe.

When pushed into the snow only about 10cm sticking out.

There has been significant snowfall over the past couple of days, with the winds from the East or North-East. There was no snow on this westerly aspects a couple of days ago, now there is almost 3 metres of windslab. This is not particularly stable, especially where it is sitting on top of the old hard neve. Poor visibility over the last couple of days has meant that I have not seen any avalanches from this storm cycles, however I am sure they have occurred. If you do see any evidence of avalanches, we greatly appreciate your reports. An avalanche reporting form can be found on the SAIS website.

Wild Day

Looking up the Nid ridge on Aonach Mor this morning, it did not look like there was a great deal of new snow. The strong winds, and low temperatures meant the most locations exposed to the wind like in the picture were very scoured. On lee slopes however, there was plenty of fresh unstable snow, and some big new cornices, and loads of blowing snow (no pictures as all the blowing snow made for very poor visibility). A quick probe close to where I dug todays pit site and I found over 150cm of fresh snow, and that was not even in a particularly sheltered location. I am sure in the back of Easy Gully and places like that there would be even more fresh, although I don't fancy going in there to find out at the moment.

At the snowpit location I found an clean shear at 24cm.

Having the ming.

Today I "had the ming" on Ben Nevis. It was a very wet day with heavy rain at lower levels and above about 900m soft, wet snow. It was not as cold as hoped for with the freezing level rising to about 1100 metres briefly around midday before dropping again during the afternoon.

The lower part of Comb Buttress

A pair below Trident buttress.

Spring Sunshine

It was a lovely Spring like day in Lochaber today. To the south there was a sea of cloud, which at times flirted with the summit plateau of Aonach Mor. To the North the cloud was more broken. Visibility towards Aonach Beag was poor, so no report on the ice conditions over there at the moment. The snow started off hard and icy, but where exposed to the sunshine was softening through the day, to provide great skiing in some locations.

Looking over to Carn Mor Dearg and the Ben.

The south side of Coire an Lochan. Still some substantial cornices about.

Coire an Lochan.