COIRE LEIS

Observatory Gully

Oops, someone dropped their rack of gear on Little Brenva Face

Little Brenva Face, bit windy here

Looking toward Douglas Boulder & Ciste Corrie

I took a wander up into the Coire Leis headwall on Ben Nevis today, checking out the snow for a snow holing day next week. This is a reliable location for a good build up of drifts in the area not far from where the old emergency shelter used to be (removed some years ago). At around 750m the snow was brilliant, frozen and excellent for cramponing, in fact probably the best snow I've encountered all winter! This area is one of those places where in summer it's just an enormous boulder field and not particularly attractive for walking on but in winter far nicer and much easier. I was just beginning to enjoy the remoteness and thinking I had the place to myself when I spotted a couple of climbers heading up toward the Cresta route on The Little Brenva Face. One guy was down climbing and I spotted he was coming back for his rack of climbing gear he'd dropped, so I picked it up and climbed up to him to save him some energy. I headed over to the drifts and dug myself a wee snow shelter for my cuppa and butty break, very pleasant too, just as the cloud dropped and snow showers started. On the way down the two climbers had backed off the climb-winds and poor visibility. The goggles have made several appearances this winter. Usually by this time of year I have made several traverses of the CMD arete, not been on it at all so far-testament to the amount of gale force winds this winter.