Sunny Again

It was another fine sunny day. The surface of the snowpack softening in locations exposed to the sun, and provided some quite good skiing. On shady North facing aspects the snow remains hard and icy, and the skiing is not so good.

 Looking East to the grey Coires.

Aonach Beag. Climbing conditions are quite good here. There was a pair on the classic grade V icefall Stand and Deliver today. Kings Ransom and Royal Pardon have also seen numerous ascents over the past few days and are reported to be in good nick. 

Looking over to Carn Mor Dearg and Ben Nevis. The Ben has been busy the past few days with many classic ice routes Orion Direct, Point Five etc having queues on them. In these situations getting hit by ice knocked of by other climbers is a significant hazard.

More Sunshine!

More sunshine

Another sunny day at work!

Much of the snow surface has frozen. Most teams had crampons on for walking on the flat summit plateau!

Busy day up the Ben

The Great Tower

Looking towards the Orion Face. Plenty of climbers in view

Corrie ne Ciste, looking up towards Green Gully

Very poor visibility on Aonach Mor.

A view Westwards before I walked up into the mist and snow.  

Extremely poor visibility on the plateau.

A cold dry day on Aonach Mor.

View North-Westwards

Carn Mor Dearg East slopes.

Wild day on the Ben

Its was pretty wild walking up to the CIC hut today! Very strong SE winds and frequent snow showers

Calm and just about clear.

It was calm and intermittently clear on the tops today. Conditions look pretty good for both climbing and skiing at the moment. 

 Two walkers heading down towards the Aonach Mor/Aonach Beag col with Sgurr a' Mhaim ipoking through the cloud in the background. 

 Aonach Beag. Ice looks like it is forming quite well on many of the routes. 

Looking over to the top of Ben Nevis. 

A calmer day on Aonach Mor with some views.

Looking NW from Aonach an Nid.

View Westwards from Aonach an Nid.

No views today!

Another day of poor visibility on the summit of Aonach Mor. There was lots of new fresh windslab in the Eastern Corries

Standing on the edge of Easy Gully. Cant see a thing!

Ben Nevis day.

Carn Dearg, the Organ Pipes and the Castle Gullies. There was a large pile of debris just off the picture    below the Castle Gullies. This was probably from the avalanche cycle on Thursday. There is a pair heading up to the steepest of the lower ice falls. 

 A bit of ice is starting to form on the Orion face and surrounding area. 

 A team of mountaineers is dwarfed by the Carn Mor Dearg.

 The Trident Buttresses. 

There was a very distinct layer of graupel within the snowpack. 

Good visibility (at last)

It was the first day for a while that the tops were clear from cloud and it was good to see plenty of people out and about enjoying the wintery conditions. Both the skiing and climbing conditions are looking pretty good at the moment. I saw evidence of at least 3 substantial avalanches, and heard about another one,  which came down during Thursday. 

 Plenty of snow in the south Side of Coire an Lochan. 

 Looking over to Carn Mor Dearg and Ben Nevis behind. Just out of shot to the right an avalanche released on Thursday just below the ridge line which is about 1090m there with debris being visible below 800m. Although not very wide it had travelled about 300 metres vertically and over 1/2 km horizontally. I did take a picture of it, but it didn't really show up very well. 

 Looking South towards Aonach Beag. 

 The cliffs of Coire an Lochan looking good. There were quite a few climbers here today. I suspect Ben Nevis would have been busy as well. 

Debris from one of Thursdays avalanches.