LESS WIND, MORE NEVE!

Holly with good crampon technique on hard neve

Digging our shelter in 'challenging' conditions

Mess of Pottage

The biggest area of neve all season!

Navigating in 'challenging' conditions

A better afternoon

Just a breeze for these guys

Our snow shelter soon filled in

The 'wet nappy position' for cramponing downhill

Ice and windswept Alladins Buttress

Holly out on day two with me in The Cairngorms today. The tail end of Storm Henry was still battering us this morning. Coupled with snow showers, spindrift and poor visibility meant a challenging morning walking into Coire an t-sneachda. We went over to the moraines area and dug ourselves a mid morning shelter. It seemed to be filling in as fast as we were digging it out! Later we donned crampons and headed up the slopes up to Windy Col. Here the snow was fantastic. Hard, refrozen snow (neve) all the way up. The biggest area of excellent snow all season! It was challenging in the wind and you needed sharp crampons up here today. There was a lull in the winds in the afternoon, just a steady 50mph rather than 70mph. Fab day out and good mix of conditions for Holly to get the full winter experience. Often overlooked in heading out into these kind of conditions is good clothing, good judgement, good navigation and going beyond your comfort zone. It's not all axes and crampons. One of those rare 'nice days' in store tomorrow!