WIND, SNOW & SUN

Great snow conditions 

Another day dawned clear and with sunny skies. Unfortunately the winds are back.  Emma and Alan are on a 4-day course with me this week. The weather forecast was for a day of 50- 80mph gales. We had a discussion in the morning with various options on route and locations before setting out. Surprisingly the winds weren't too bad in Coire an t-sneachda. The bright skies and sunshine maybe took the edge off the labouring into the wind.

Windy skies

Time for a break

Can't be that bad, picnic in the hills

A Southerly wind is always the worse kind of wind in the Cairngorms. The gales accelerate across the plateau and funnel down the Northern side of the mountains. It can sometimes be as windy in the coire as on the plateau. 

Moraines

Some shelter here

Great cramponing in a sheltered location 

After lunch we perservered and went further into the coire to see if it was any calmer. It was! Often being tucked under steeper ground you avoid the gales swooping down. There were a few teams out climbing and some large numbers of skills groups out. Earlier in the day a few folk had given up and were walking out.

Calmer here

Alladin's Buttress 

Happy

Some wonderful wind scoured hard snow and neve in the upper reaches of Sneachda. Great for honing cramponing and axe techniques. We saw a team at the top of the Goat Track slowy and tentively descending into the coire. Maye it wasn't that windy on the plateau?

Traversing

Descending

A great first day and top marks to Emma and Alan, coping well with their first taste of a Cairngorm breeze.