Tuesday 21 February 2012

WHAT DO YOU MEAN, NO SNOW?

Hasty pits with over 2m of snow
A shear at 10cm
Time for some tunnelling
Our snowhole today
Strolling in the sun
Another day of warmish temperatures but the rain was only a constant drizzle today so things looking up. Bob on his 2nd day out with me, was originally wanting a snow hole night but with the current temperatures as they are I convinced him it may be a bit of a 'damp affair'. As a close alternative we constructed the snow shelter and just had our lunch break in it. We took the gondola up onto Aonach Mor and were soon in a good depth of snow. Today's activities also included avalanche awareness and assessment and we continued with axe and crampon technique. We did various snow pits to analyse the snow pack, finding a shear at around 10cm but the layers were starting to bond in the stable temperatures. Where we dug our snow pits there was over 2m of snow. After elevenses we dug a nice and comfy snow shelter for lunch. A very civilised day indeed and nice to get out of the strengthening SW wind. We just got back to the gondola when they were taking the cars off (again!), due to high winds so we had a stroll back down to the car park. A case for single tickets at Nevis Range?? Looks like another damp day again tomorrow, I'm fast running out of dry gloves! Freezing levels dropping to 800m on Friday.

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