Castle Gullies.

I often see piles of debris below the Castle Gullies, but have never been up either of them. I decided to take advantage of the stable snow conditions to head up South Castle Gully, to have a look at the starting zone near the top.

Heading up towards the Castle Gullies, lots of old avalanche debris about.

There was some good looking ice on the side walls of the gully. As seen in the picture the top pitches of Compression Cracks and Plum Line were looking good. An icefall higher up the gully called Plum Duff looked superb (sort of like a steeper version of the Cascade over in Coire na Ciste) and, due to the stable snow conditions, safe to get to at the moment. I have never heard of anybody doing this routes, so hopefully now I it has been mentioned on the blog someone will be up there climbing it tomorrow.

Icy crust.

As highlighted by my crystal card, the was thin but very unusually icy layer on the surface of the snowpack at higher levels today. It was less than 1cm thick, but was made up from almost clear water ice. It was either a form a glaze ice, formed by freezing rain/drizzle, or very hard icy rime, which is caused by supercooled water drops in the atmosphere.

Danger! Danger! The ice also covered this Danger Sign.

A climber belaying at the top of the cliff of Coire an Lochan. Cornices are making the exits from some routes quite tricky at the moment.

Mild and still on the Ben.

Cloud coming and going. Still plenty of ice about.

Looking up towards Point Five Gully and Hadrians wall. When digging my pit a small wet snow avalanche come down Sickle, the ice smear just to the right of Hadrians wall. This was probableyt quite exciting for the two pairs of climbers on Hadrians Wall at the time.

By adjusting the setting of the photo, the debris from this avalanche can be seen. Although not particular extensive, it would certainly have been enough to knock you off a climber.

Aonach Mor before the rain.

The slowly approaching rain.

Carn Mor Dearg and Ben Nevis

Aonach Beag

Had a good little trip over to Aonach Beag today. Another nice day, but as can be seen in the pictures the first sign of a change in the weather can be seen out to the South-West. It is forecast to be milder on the summit of Ben Nevis tomorrow than at sea level on the South East coast of England. Terrible!

Looking south from the summit of Aonach Mor to Aoanch Beag.

About to head down to the col with Mamores and the hills of Glen Coe in the background.

Looking back from the col to Ben Nevis and Carn Mor Dearg.

Heading home via Summit Gully and Coire an Lochan.

Beautiful winters day.

Cornices and steep snow making the exits from some of the routes on Aonach Mor quite tricky at the moment.

When Easy Gully, the usual way to access the routes on Aonach Mor is hazardous, the routes can still be reached by abseiling down Central Buttress as these climbers are doing. Note the avalanche and cornice debris lower down.

The crags of Coire an Lochan of Aonach Mor. If you look carefully you can see a crown wall running from below Forgotten Twin over to below Grooved Arete, and the debris running down and disappearing into the shadow near the bottom right of the image.

Back Coires

Oops some snow on the lens. A few people were out enjoying some good skiing in the back coires of Nevis range today. However, care need taken as there were some areas of poorly bonded snow as well as some large and fragile cornices about. We met a pair of climbers who got a bit of a fright when a large section of cornice at the top of Easy Gully collapsed as they approached it.

A change in the weather.

Lumps of ice dislodged by warming temperaturs and increased water levels floating down the Allt a Mhullin.

A view up into Coire na Ciste just before the weather closed in.

The Douglas Boulder through blowing wet snow.

A bit of a change in the weather today, with a fair bit of snow on the tops. Thanks to the team staying in the CIC hut for reporting their (rather exciting) snow stability observations this morning.

Another sunny and cold day on Aonach Mor. Climbers on White Shark

Winter on the Ben

Loads of parties climbing on many of the main lines today. If you look closely at the pictures you can see teams on Hadrians Wall and Point Five among other things

Where's all the snow gone?

Raised footprints, on a thin icy layer.

A few streaks of soft snow, with hard icy stuff left below.

If you look at the blog posts of a few days ago you will see that there was a fair bit of soft snow about. Unfortunately it has gone, blown off the mountain or sublimed back into the atmosphere in the strong winds. Oh dear.

Cloud on Aonach Mor plateau clearing

Looking north from Aonach Mor.

Poor Viz day.

Ben Nevis and Carn Mor Dearg this morning. This is the best view I had all day due to a cap of cloud that formed over the top of the hill.

Not ideal conditions to be looking for avalanches (or anything else for that matter). Climbers milling around somewhere near the top of Easy Gully.

Almost calm on Aonach Mor

Carn Mor Dearg: NE side

Looking west from Aonach Mor.

Unstable pillows on Aonach Mor

Some of the local instabilities on Aonach Mor

Fresh snow at last

Heavy snow showers through the day with strong SW winds. Plenty of snow blowing about and drifting into the tops gullies and slopes.

Back on the Ben.

Lots of old snow in the Ciste. Not very much fresh.

Some ice high up on the Ben.

Ben Nevis today

Gardyloo Buttress and Indicator Wall. Some climbers can be seen on Smith's route.

Looking East to Carn Mor Dearg and Aonach Mor. Although they may look quite brown, there is a fair bit of snow out of sight on the East faces of these mountains.

Coire na Ciste, looking up towards Number 3 Gully

A lone climber heads back over the summit plateau enjoying the view of the cloud inversion.

With little change in the weather the snowpack remains hard and stable. However, looks like things will change over the next few days.

Good day for photos.

The snowpack is hard and icy at the moment, minimal avalanche hazard. It was a nice day for a stroll across the Aonach Mor plateau and for taking a few pictures.

Coire an Lochan.

Looking over to Ben Nevis.

Looking South to Aonach Beag.

Looking South West over the Mamores towards Glen Coe.

Blue Skies at last

This is what it looks like up the Ben. Not much ice but plenty of frozen snow

A clear day.

Aonach Beag.

Coire an Lochan.

It was a clear cold day. The snowpack, which got damp in the mild wet conditions yesterday, has now frozen solid, meaning the the avalanche hazard is currently low.

More snow on the tops.

It was quite wild with poor visibility during showers.

Fresh snow drifing behind rocks on a rather icy Aonach Mor Plateau. From what we could see there was a fair bit of fresh being deposited on high Easterly aspects.

Avalanche on Aonach Mor

Finally there was a break in the high winds which seem to have been battering Scotland over the past few weeks. I took the oppertunity to get up on to the summit of Aonach Mor. From the plateau I saw evidence of a large slab avalanche in Coire an Lochain. In this picture I have marked the crown wall (or what I could see) in the picture above in red. I estimated this to be over 200 metres long. There was plenty of debris right down to the loch. This avalanche probabley released sometime on Wednesday during heavy snow. There was a few other large avalanches observed or reported on Wednesday.