Up the Ben

Looking towards the West side of Tower Ridge

Looking up Number 3 Gully

It won't look this wintry tomorrow!

Graham

Winter again

Certainly felt like winter again today. (picture of Aonach Mor). All the old snow is refrozen and pretty solid. Some localised areas of fresh windslab which shows marginal stability

Is there anything left?

Here is a view of the Ben from the path.

On the bright side, it is getting cold again and the snow showers feel quite wintery. Hopefully get a better view of things tomorrow

Graham

Not a heathly day for snow.

It was been a stormy weekend, with heavy rain and gusts of over 100mph both days. Yesterday was a bit cooler with some fresh snow on the tops, but today was super mild. The forecast is for colder conditions tomorrow, in which case the snowpack will become very hard and icy.
Blair

Cloudy but no snow.

It was very cloudy on the Ben today, but we didn't really get much fresh snow. There remains some good snow ice in the high up gullies, and some water ice is beginning to form form at lower levels. However, as this picture of Carn Dearg shows, there is not much snow lower down. The CIC hut ice fall is probablely climbable if you were feeling brave.

On a non-snow related topic, last Monday (29th) I gave a couple of lads from the lakes called Chris and Donald a lift. One of them left their headtorch in my car. If you know them, then get them to get in touch at SAIS.Lochaber@gmail.com to get it back.
Blair

Another lovely day on Aonach Mor

It remained dry and cold on Aonach Mor with a good number of climbers enjoying the conditions.

New Year Hill Race.

Areas of water ice on Aonach Mor, very slippery.




People running up a big hill.



To start the year it was the traditional Aonach Mor hill race. About 100 competitors raced up the hill from the Nevis range car park to the Snow Goose restaurant. I took the gondola (and beat them all).

On the hill the snow remains very hard. Large areas of water ice are a hazard. Crampons are necessary for safe travel on these.
Blair

Inversion

There were a few teams out climbing in Coire an Lochan today. There a are at least two teams on route in this picture, but they are quite hard to spot.

Looking east across the Grey Coires with Ben Alder in the distance.


Looking South West from Aonach Mor towards Glen Coe.

It was a lovely day on the tops today for those who made the effort to get up there. There was a sea of cloud at about 800m stretching out in all directions. A few parties were seen enjoying some good looking ice and neve in on Aonach Mor.

Blair

Lovely day.

Although it looks quite Spring like in the picture taken on the east side of Aonach mor, a chilly southerly wind made it feel cold. The surface of the snowpack remain well frozen (crampons advisable) with any drainage lines starting to ice up.
Blair

Settled conditions

Looking over towards Ben Nevis.


Coire an Lochan of Aonach Mor. There are some climbers at the base of some the icy runnels.

It was a lovely day on Aoanch Mor today, and much warmer on the summit than down in the glens. The snow survived the thaw has been freezing for the last few days, and is now very hard and icy. Although there is not a huge amount of snow and ice about, what exists will provide some great climbing.

Xmas Day on the Ben

Xmas day on the Ben: Plenty of old snow in the main gully lines and a lot of the old ice is still present high up (see pictures below) One reported ascent of Gardyloo Gully today

Santas little Mountaineering Assistants inspecting the snow pit at the bottom of Observatory Gully. They seemed more interested in building snowmen.

View into the corrie. Plenty of old ice high up still

Looking up towards NE Buttress and Obs Ridge. Plenty of old ice evident in Point Five and on Hadrians Wall

Lull in the Storm

After a very stormy week, today was quite calm. After a brief thaw yesterday evening, the snowpack has refrozen and is generally quite firm. Overnight snow showers have deposited fresh snow in some areas (as in today's picture). There is a bit more snow than this time last year. Unfortunately the forecast is for stormy, mild and wet weather tomorrow..
Blair

A new Season

Today (Tues 16th) was the first day of the season for the SAIS Lochaber and North Cairngorm teams. Typically after weeks of cold and relatively settled weather, the weather turned mild, windy and wet for our return. In some places there are good accumulations of snow for the time of year. For example at our snow pit site on the East side of Aonach Mor, at an altitude of about 900m, there was almost 260 cm of snow.
Blair

Easy Gully Cervasse.

Is this just a small hole in the snow?......

No, it is the entrance to a large crevasse. Here Jenny relaxed about 10ft below the surface snow. However, getting out proved to be quite tricky.....


Today it was mild with rain at all levels. A large crevasse at the top of Easy Gully on Aonach Mor was today discovered by an unfortunate hill walker, who fell into a hole in the snow. I don't think that he (or she) fell all the way in, as their tracks did continued on the other side of the hole (and there was no sign of them at the bottom).
Blair

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