Sping conditions

Some large cornices and strange "Mr Whippy" formations exist at the top of many crags.

Some large blocks of debris from a recent cornice collapse.

After an icy start this morning the snowpack soon softened in the warm sunny conditions. There are large cornices about, and some of these are begining to droop and become unstable in the mild conditions. We found debris from a recently collapsed cornice on the Cairn slope of Aonach Mor. This included some pretty substantial blocks. With the forecast for the mild conditions to continue tomorrow, cornice collapse will remain a hazard.
Blair

Poor visibility today.

Conditions near the summit of Aonach Mor today (1st April).


Conditions near the summit of Aonach Mor yesterday (31st March). The crown wall from a natural dry slab avalanche can be seen here in Easy gully.


Skiers considering dropping into the back coires of Aonach Mor. Although the cornices shown here are small compared to some that exist at the moment, they still felt pretty big when you stood on top of them.

Enjoying the skiing in the back coires of Aonach Mor Yesterday (31st March)


After a lovely day yesterday, it was back to wind, sleet and cloud today. There is loads of snow in Lochaber at the moment. This again provided some fine skiing. However there are some large cornices about that the moment, and care has to be taken in conditions experienced today, not to fall through one of these.
Blair

Good conditions in Lochaber.

Looking up towards Ben Nevis on Thursday (27th March)

Some great off piste skiing in the Back Coires of Aonach Mor (27th March)


Walking back up having just skied Easy Gully (27th March)



After an amazing day in Lochaber yesterday, the weather conditions weren't so great today. From what I could see, climbing conditions on Ben Nevis are looking pretty good at the moment. Certainly conditions on the classic ice routes are reported as good. In general the snow cover is good at the moment, and likely to further improve over the next few days. Yesterday there was some amazing off piste skiing to be had in the back coires of Aonach Mor. However it is worth noting that avalanches are common on the slopes pictured above, and these areas should skied unless you have a good understanding of avalanche conditions and appropriate safety equipment. If unsure, the Nevis Range ski patrol will happily give you some advise as to where is safe.

Windy conditions with more snow in the evening is expected tomorrow (Saturday). Much more pleasant mountain conditions are expected on Sunday. However there is likely to be large areas of windslab about, so care should be taken.
Blair

Good winter conditions.

A cloud plume making the Ben look atmospheric


Some boarders enjoying some great off piste skiing as Nevis range. Easy gully and the crags of Coire an Lochan in the background.

Lots of snow, ice and settled weather conditions made it an excellent day for winter activities in Lochaber today. However, there are patches of windslab, mainly on NE to SE aspects which should treated with a bit of care.
Blair

Plenty of folk up the Ben climbing this weekend. Conditions look quite good, especially higher up

Spot the climbers! There are at least 8

Lots of snow.

Coire an Lochan (Aonach Mor ) yesterday (19th of March).


Somewhere in the back coires of Aonach Mor today (20th March).



There is loads of snow on the Lochaber hills at the moment. There was a bit of a thaw today, with rain at all levels. However, the forecast is for northerly winds, low temperatures and some snow over the next few days. Plenty of ice routes (Orion, Zero, Point Five, Hadrians wall) were climbed on Ben Nevis earlier in the weekend. Much of the ice was quite cruddy and difficult to protect. Hopefully this mild spell will improve the quality of the ice. It might also get rid of some of the large cornices which exist above many routes. For skiing there is a good cover at the moment. This will set up quite hard when it freezes. However, new snow on top of this could give some very good skiing.
Blair

Snowpack is continuing to stabilise. On Aonach Mor, stability is generally good although there are still some large cornices around. Photo below shows the cornices above the Twins area on Aonach Mor.

Big Cornices.

The weather has been quite settled for the past few days. The large amounts of windslab which exist are slowly consolidating. However, some large cornices still exist, as seen in this picture of Winger wall on Aonach Mor. Cornices like these will be making the exits from some routes on Aonach Mor and the Ben quite tricky at the moment.
Blair

More snow

Plenty more snow on Aonach Mor today. Skiing looked good. Some big cornices above many of the climbs (as this one above left twin).
Blair

Avalanche!

Looking up towards Orion face from the CIC hut.

The plume of snow in the middle of the picture is an avalanche

You can see the fresh debris (directly above the people) piled on top of old debris

I was up Ben Nevis today. It looked like the climbing conditions were improving. While we standing by the CIC hut a natural avalanche released in one of the castle gullies. The debris piled up on top of the debris mentioned in the previous blog post. I have altered the colours in the pictures a bit to make the avalanches stand out better. However, we did not see any other any other avalanche activity on the Ben during the day.
Blair

Freezing level shot up last night before gradually lowering during today. Wet snow up to around 1000 - 1100m. Wet snow avalanche our of No5 Gully this morning.

Photo is of the debris out of South Castle Gully yesterday, getting close to the path!

Back to normal.

After two days of amazing conditions (sunshine, light winds and a good cover of deep powder snow) it was back to more normal Scottish conditions today. Fortunately it did nor rain very much during the morning. At 900m the surface centimetre of the snowpack was wet, but below that the snow was still (just) below freezing. There was a large number of point release snowballs that had rolled down the slope. These often occur on slopes exposed to the sun, but can occur in other conditions as well. The ones in the picture (I have altered the colours so they show up better) rolled down at about 11 am this morning, almost taking out veteran Himalayan climber Alan Hinkes, who happened was walking past at the time.
Blair

A day of two halves.

After a temporary overnight thaw followed by a sub-zero Sunday the snowpack had a melt-freeze crust in most locations. In places this was breakable, elsewhere hard and solid. Visibility during the morning was quite good with a light wind but things changed dramatically just after midday. The westerly wind increased significantly and there were frequent snow showers with considerable drifting. The crags are looking good at the moment.

An icy day.

As predicted the freezing level dropped last night. The soaking snowpack has frozen solid. Things were so wet that the summit plateau of Aonach Mor has become covered in about 5cm of ice. With all that water about, the ice climbing conditions will be improving on Ben Nevis. The crags of Aonach Mor were starting to look quite wintry but I suspect the mixed route to be quite verglassed making runners hard to find.

Blair

Very wet

My lovely assistants bask in some finest west coast weather conditions. How glamorous!

Today was perhaps the wettest day I have ever seen on Aonach Mor (and I have seen some pretty wet conditions up there). Heavy and persistent rain fell for most of the day. The snow is soft and wet. However colder temperatures are forecast for tomorrow, and with so much water about, there should be some rapid ice build up.
Blair

Blowing snow.

"...umm shall we go down there..... it looks a bit scary to me.....ummm..."

Snow blowing into Coire an Lochan.


There was plenty of snow blowing around at the top of Aonach Mor today. The wind was from the west, meaning that all the new snow is being deposited on East aspects. There were some soft cornices forming, and the scarp slopes were being loading. There were plenty of people milling around the top, wondering whether to try and descend into Coire an Lochan or not. Some were feeling lucky, and went for it, while others decided to try elsewhere.
Blair

New snow.

There was a good cover of new snow at higher levels today. In the picture (about 850m on the East face of Aonach Mor) there was about 30cm of fresh snow, but below this level there was little new snow. In increase in temperature meant that the new snow was very soft and wet. The weather forecast is for lower temperature tomorrow, so this snow is likely to consolidate.
Blair

Winter is back.

Winter made a return to Lochaber today. The picture shows Keith on the Nid ridge during the morning, before the weather turned really foul.
Blair

Snow showers today.

On Aonach Mor today the generally Westerly wind was variable in strength and direction with considerable transport of snow. Visibility also varied considerably as illustrated in these two photographs, though poor visibility was much more prolonged than good!!

A hard rain's a-gonna fall.

I was a very wet day on the hill with a strong winds and a hard driving rain falling in our faces. It made me think what Mr Dylan would have said if he had been out on the hill today....


Oh, where have you been, my blue eyed son?
Oh, where have you been my darling young one?
I've been out in a storm, at my eyes it was clawing,
I've dug a sorry snowpack, it was rapidly thawing,
I've climbed a distant ridge, we were all soaked to the skin,
I stood under great ice routes, they were bedraggled and thin
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

Blair

Cloud inversion.

Looking West over Carn Mor Dearg to Ben Nevis

Looking East across the Grey Coires.

The Aonach Mor plateau was looking quite summery today.





It was a stunning day on the Lochaber hills. The tops were poking out above a sea of cloud. The snow is generally very hard and icy, but on southerly aspects it softens a bit during the day. Great conditions for hillwalking and some of the easier (grade I and II) winter climbs.

Room with a view

It was another lovely day in Lochaber. This fine collection of igloos on the East face of Aonach Mor was a good spot for some lunch. However, some of the walls were starting to suffer in the sunny weather.

Blair

Lovely day for a stroll

It was a lovely spring-like day for a stroll over to Aonach Beag today. The view back to Ben Nevis was great.
Blair

Spring has arrived! The snow generally remains frozen and should give some good climbing still in the gullies. Many of the buttresses are pretty bare and the plateau is grassy!

Crags on Aonach Mor today

What a difference a day makes

What a difference a day makes. In complete contrast to yesterday, it was mild, cloudy and very wet on Ben Nevis today. The lovely snow and ice which covered the hills is rapidly turning to water and heading towards the sea. This means that all the rivers and streams are raging torrents. This is okay if you are a kayaking freak, but not so useful for winter climbing or skiing. We failed to get across the Allt a' Mhuilinn to get to the CIC hut. See pictures of Allt a' Mhuilinn near the dam and walking up towards the CIC.

Blair

Coire Dubh

Today the Nevis range ski patrol accomapined us to have a look at the back coires of Aonach Mor, to see if it was possible to open them for skiing. As seen in the picture of Coire Dubh, there was plenty of avalanche activity there, some very fragile cornices and lots more fresh unstable snow blowing in. The coires remained closed.
Blair

More snow and wind

It would be fair to say that the conditions today were far from ideal for spotting avalanches, although I am pretty sure they were out there.

Strong S-SW winds and persistant snow above 600m.

The picture says it all!

Pretty wet and horrible up the Ben today. Large avalanches out of most of the main gullies. Looks like it is still freezing above 1000m so there will still be lots of unstable snow about there. There was no way I was going up there for a closer look after having watched No5 gully avalanche!

Extent of avalanche debris below Observatory Gully


Looking into the inner corrie

Snow down to the glen

Snow fell down to low levels today and Ben Nevis is looking suitably wintry. During short breaks in the mist these pictures were taken.