BROAD GULLY

Rafaella axe arresting and hard enough snow for sliding

Nice views from Broad Gully, quite a bit of fallen rock about in the mild temps

Near the top

It's been a disappointing last few days with temperatures on the high side. Rafaella was out with me today and the planned weekend a few weeks ago was a day of winter skills then a beautiful wintery traverse of The Aonach Eagach on day two. Well things change, even after a week, a weeks a long time in the mountains, has they say. So we headed up into Coire an Lochan in Glencoe, it was a dryish first hour then the drizzle came on and that's how it stayed much of the day. Cloud base around  850m all day so it wasn't a day for photos. It was the quietest I've seen it  in the coire for many a year. So that was nice. After an hour of basic axe and crampon technique and a couple of axe arrests Raffaella was confident to tackle Broad Gully. The gully is probably the only complete climb in the coire right now and  we had it to ourselves. We made quick progress and it was a nice surprise to find the snow relatively hard and crunchy all the way up. The westerly wind on the ridges wasn't too bad but it was a sorry state with not a drop of snow along the bouldery ridge and we were quickly back down into the coire and down to the car park in good time. Rafaella will be doing the Aonach Egach in 'summer' conditions tomorrow me thinks!