Tuesday 15 February 2011

BLOWING AND SWIMMING UP BEN NEVIS

A fine start this morning with blue skies but by late morning clouds and strong SE winds blowing a lot of loose snow around. David wanted a winter walk up The Ben today so he got a good mix of snow and weather conditions for his first taste of winter mountains. The snowline was at around 300m today and by the time we got up to the Red Burn there was a lot of wading through windblown snow. We weaved our way up some steeper ground, avoiding the Pony Track as much as possible. Poor visibility by 1000m and goggle donning time. There were only a few other folk out today but they had all turned back once the going got tough (or was it because we stopped for a break behind a boulder?). High avalanche (Cat 4) on W-NW-N-NE slopes tomorrow, indeed there were pretty big pieces of wind slab breaking off on the Pony Track on a 10 degree slope on our way down! The Pony Track is well banked out with snow high up at the moment.

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