Bucket seat & axe belay
Second day of Jim's winter skills course with me today. We set off from a deserted North Face car park and headed up to Observatory Gully this morning. There was some clear skies and felt a wee bit cooler today. The winds were quite light as we headed up onto the snow leading into Observatory. There was a slight crust on the snow pack, due to the slightly cooler temperatures overnight. We were soon sheltered from the SW winds as we went through some more movement on snow including a chance for some cutting steps with the axe. Today's main topics were avalanche awareness and assessment and security on steep ground. With the snow pack quite stable at the moment there wasn't a lot to discover in the snow pits we dug. We then moved onto some steeper ground on the side of Tower Ridge and went through constructing various snow belays. We got away with a mostly dry day, only getting wet on the walk out. There was some precipitation falling as wet snow at 900m today and the winds picked up later in the afternoon. We never saw a soul all day, not even a dog walker out of the car park, the weather and conditions weren't that bad! Still looking good for next couple of days, colder with some sunshine forecasted. Good timing as off tomorrow on Creag Meagaidh with a planned overnight snow hole and some winter navigation. |
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