Heavy snow showers

Some heavy snow showers, and poor visibility at higher levels.  

Snow showers

 It was quite windy with some heavy snow showers through the day.

With all this snow cover there few boulders about for wildlife to hide from passing avalanche forecasters. This little creature seemed to think if he stayed still I might not spot him. However, when he did start moving he did so a lot faster than the passing avalanche forecaster. 

It was quite windy with some heavy snow showers through the day. There was lots of blowing snow and little visibility at higher levels. 

The sun did try and come out from time to time. Even then there was plenty of snow blowing about and being deposited on lee slopes. 

Poor visibility in the clouds!

Skinning up the North side of Aonach Mor. Couldn't see very much!

Rain and avalanches on Ben Nevis

 A lot of water from rain and snowmelt coming down the Allt  a' Mhuilinn.

 Debris from several small avalanches low down on a North East aspect which have occurred over the last few days.

A large avalanche came down Observatory Gully in the last 24 hours.

Another wet day on the Ben

A gloomy Douglas Boulder

Looking up to Carn Dearg. Quite a few parties on the Curtain today

Another wild day in the hills!

Very poor visibility on the Ben today!

Looking up towards the Douglas Boulder

Looking down from the CIC Hut

Finally some nice views.

 No shortage of snow in Coire an Lochan at the moment. 

Looking over to the Mamores with Ben Nevis on the right. A full depth avalanche can be seen on right and shoulder of Sgurr a Mhaim, and although it looks pretty small in the picture, I suspect close up it would be quite substantial. This probably released yesterday (Tuesday) when it was a bit milder. 

 Some pretty substantial cornices about. 

Atmospheric view of Ben Nevis and Carn Mor Dearg as the cloud came and went. 

Very poor visibility on Aonach Mor.

The best, and about the only, view I had today.

Back to cloud, snow and limited visibility.

Looking up towards Ben Nevis.

At last, some sunshine.

 Climbers at the top of Easy Gully. Notice the crown wall on the far side. This avalanche had been triggered by a cornice collapse. They wisely decided not to go down. 

Patterns of erosion and deposition. Although there was only a brief snow shower during the day, there was plenty of wind transportation. 

 Looking East to the Grey Corries.

Some pretty substantial cornices about. Note the figure peering over the skyline. 

Varying winds.

The winds have been variable in direction over the past 24 hours. Today the winds was from the North West which, as shown in this picture shows, the spindrift is blown from the gentle slope on the left  and deposited onto the steeper slope on the right. Compare this to yesterdays picture of the same area where the spindrift is being up the steep slope on the left and deposited on the top. The varying winds have resulted in a complex pattern of scoured and deposited areas.

Plumes of spindrift on Aonach Mor.

Despite only moderate winds there were plumes of spindrift along Aonach an Nid. 

Lots and lots of snow on Ben Nevis.

NE Buttress and Douglas Boulder looming out of the mist and snow.

The upper side of the CIC Hut.

Another wild day

After a promising start, things deteriorated pretty quickly with strong Southerly winds and lots of snow drifting, even at lower elevations

Around 500m on Aonach Mor

Some heavy showers

Conditions at 800 metres, starring Lynsay the ski patroller and a lot of snow. Filmed on location at the top of the alpha button in Nevis Rage ski area this morning. Hardly Warren Millar I know, but shows what conditions were like at that level in the snow showers. I imagine conditions would have been pretty wild on the summit at the time.

There were a few quite nice spells between showers.  Looking up the Goose Tee-bar. To give you an idea of snow depth, there is a hut the size of a small garden shed somewhere under the snow in this area. 

Looking over to Carn Mor Dearg. This was about the best visibility I got all day. Spindrift can be seen blowing off the far ridges.

The summit area just before the next snow shower arrived. Large amounts of spindrift can be seen blowing into the Coire an Lochan, building up the cornices and loading the scarp slopes. 

Some views then no visibility........

The view Northwards as I was heading up towards the clouds.

The heavily rimed tower at the top of the ski area less than 10 metres away.

The Top Station and Sgurr Finnisg-aig as I dropped out of the clouds. 

Even more snow, even less visibility

Conditions at the pit site at 1100 metres. Visibility was really poor, it felt like I was skiing inside a  ping-pong ball for all that I could see. 

It did clear up briefly when I was down. Very good cover at the moment. About 10 minutes after this picture as taken it had all clagged in again, and soon started to snow.

Still loads of snow!

Good snow cover above 600m

Avalanche debris from Observatory Gully earlier in the week, stopping about 50m before the CIC hut

Looking up Orion Face

20 people on the CMD arete

Lots of snow, not a lot of visibility (again)

 Good snow cover on Nevis range. 

However, it soon closed in and this is more representative of what it was like for most of the time I was on the hill. 

Recent avalanche debris running a long way out from Observatory gully. 

Sunny spells on Aonach Mor.

The north end of the Coire an Lochain crags, Aonach Mor.

Recent strong winds have scoured some areas and redistributed the snow elsewhere, 

as indicated by these raised footprints.

Snow transport and no visibility on Aonach Mor.

Snow transport during a morning brighter spell, before mist, snowfall and spindrift combined to reduce visibility to very little.

More Castle Gullies avalanches.

Another avalanche out of the Castle Gullies. This released this morning about half an hour before this picture was taken, and is the 3rd major avalanche in just over a week out of the Castle Gullies.  The debris splits into two branches, the left hand one (further away one in this picture) just about reached the burn. Another avalanche occurred in Number 5 Gully about the same time. I suspect there were plenty of other avalanches as well, but the poor visibility stopped us observing them. 

Climbers head up to the Douglas Boulder. Poor visibility high up the hill. 

Brief weather window.

For most of the day visibility was very poor. There was snow showers and plenty of snow being blown around on the strong Southerly winds. It did however, clear up for about 15 minutes during which time I managed to get a few pictures. 

 Coire an Lochan. Plenty of snow in here. 

 Drifting on strong Southerly winds. 

This picture is more typical of the days weather. There are large drifts of fresh snow in front of the Nevis range gondola station.