Sunday 27 January 2013

WIND, SPINDRIFT, SUN, ICE

Hasty pit with easy shear
Fluted Buttress
Fiacaill Buttress
Nice ice
Another excellent mix of varied weather and terrain for Paul & Harvey on day two of their winter skills. We enjoyed plenty of strong winds, spindrift, bright blue skies, snow showers and sunshine. Our original plan was to go onto The Fiacaill Ridge  but the gale force winds put a stop to that so instead we headed into Coire an t-sneachda and below the Fiacaill Buttress for some more steep ground. Before this we examined various slopes and dug several snow pits for avalanche assessment. In one location we found the snow pack  had 30cm of wind slab on top of an old layer of ice which sheared relatively easy. Later on we had wonderful water ice to play on below the Point Five Gully in sneachda. During the middle of the day the sun came out and blue skies, then half an hour later we had the full Scottish mountain experience with heavy spindrift and poor vis with strong gusts. Toward the end of the day we finished off with some ice axe arresting, again in strong gusts and spindrift which almost blew us back up our sliding slope :) . Thanks to Harvey & Paul for a great couple of days and great craic back in town. There were a few places I wouldn't have even contemplated going near, one of these was Aladdin's Couloir, we saw at least two separate parties heading up there today.
I found a bit of climbing gear in the corrie today, if it's yours just drop me a line and the usual description and will return it to it's owner: 077 2000 1326.
Off to Skye tomorrow guiding on a couple of  Munros, hopefully the winds will be kind!

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