Not a fine day on Ben Nevis.

Two optimistic folk heading up towards Observatory Gully in some less that perfect conditions today.

Looking up towards Carn Dearg Buttress in some not very pleasant conditions. If you look carefully you can see the streams being blown back up over the band rock in the middle of the picture.

As predicted there was plenty of precipitation today. Unfortunately it was not as cold as expected, and a fair bit of that precipitation fell as rain rather than snow. After a mild night, it did snow down to about 700 metres early in the morning. However, the snow level rose to around the summits level through the day. I suspect that a fair bit of fresh snow has been deposited high on Aonach Mor and Ben Nevis, and with the rising temperatures that these newest deposits are not very stable. Having retreated to the office, and with nice view of strong winds and heavy rain though the window, I also suspect that it is not very pleasant up there at the moment. Hopefully a bit colder tomorrow.

Still some snow left!

Some pictures of Aonach Mor and the Ben at lunchtime today. Still plenty of snow left after the thaw!

Looking across the crags on Aonach Mor

Looking towards the Ben

All I want for Christmas is.....Winter

The pictures above show that is was not a very Christmasy scene on Ben Nevis today. Heavy rain, strong winds (gusts of 114mph were recorded on nearby Aonach Mor) and a freezing level of nearly 3000 metres meant that the snow and ice was melting pretty quickly. Most of the ice which had been observed a week of so ago is now gone, with only the main gully lines complete. With more of the same forecast tomorrow it is turing out to be more like A Nightmare before (after) Christmas than a Christmas Carol this year.

More snow in the West.

Over the past few days there has been a fair bit more snow on the hills of Lochaber. Yesterday (Monday) was quite a mild day with rain at lower levels and lots of heavy wet snow higher up. Today was colder with snow showers through the day. The picture shows conditions at the snowpit site (a South-Easterly aspect at an altitude of 1130m). By probing from the bottom of the snowpit, I discovered that there is more than 4 metre of snow on this slope.

Lots of Snow in the West.

Looking South along the East face of Aonach Mor today. The routes Left Twin and Morwand finish up the snowcrest catching the sunshine the in the middle distance.

It started off a lovely day today. We were up on Aonach Mor and, for me a least, it was the first day up there this season with good visibility. I took this opportunity to have a good look around. For this time of year there is loads of snow about, most of which has been blown in on a Westerly wind. As you would expect there is some pretty substantial cornices about. Many of the posts above Left Twin/Morwand area are buried. In previous winters we often abseil off these to investigate the snow on the scarp slopes above these routes. Many guides and instructors also use these post to abseil into these and nearby routes when the snow in Easy Gully is not very stable. However, unless the snow melts back a bit, this may not be an option this winter.

Looking over to Ben Nevis as the weather starts to get threatening.

Through the morning the cloud gathered, before the wind got up and there were some snow showers through the afternoon.

Avalanche on the Ben.

Today we were up on Ben Nevis for a wee look about. In general there is lots of snow, and winter climbing conditions are looking good, and there were very few people about.
There has been a large avalanche from below the Orion face. The crown wall ran all the way from below the first platform of North East Buttress to below Observatory Ridge. In the photo I have marked the most obvious bit of the crown wall in red. The height of this crown wall was quite variable, and in some sections it was quite shallow and hard to pick out. However, other sections were quite obvious and could be seen as far away the the Dam. We estimated at one section the crown wall was about 2 metres high.
All in all quite a substantial avalanche, and the largest I have seen from that bowl below the Orion face. It probably occurred some time on Tuesday when there was a lot of snow, and the freezing level briefly rose to about 1000m.

New Season

Climbing conditions are building quite nicely on the Ben at the moment. Here you can see a fair bit of ice about on the Trident Buttresses, with Mega Route X already looking in better nick that it did throughout last winter.

A fair bit of snow in Coire ne Ciste. By the time this picture was taken (Friday) it had consolidated due to some milder conditions on Thursday. However, there has also been some avalanche activity earlier in the week , with evidence of slides from below Glovers Chimney, below Green Gully as well as down Number 4 Gully and Number 5 Gully.

Looking up Observatory Gully on Saturday the 10th, again with a fair bit of ice about.