WILD IN THE CAIRNGORMS AGAIN

Ruxi on the Ciste Crag

Big areas of scoured slopes for crampons

A lot of this today

Some of this

But mostly this

Coire Laoigh Mor

And a bright spell late afternoon

Ruxi is out with me this weekend on a two day course. She had previously been on a 5 day winter course so we had a recap of many aspects of winter hillwalking. Toady's conditions were back to 'challenging' in the 50mph + winds at 800m.The ski road up to Coire Cas was closed so we hoofed it up the road to the Ciste carpark and headed up to the Ciste Crag before walking over toward Coire Laoigh Mor. Apparently there had been an impressive avalanche in the coire a couple of days ago but you couldn't see much in there today with the amount of spindrift and cloud. We found many areas of wind scoured slopes so Ruxi got plenty of time to try out here new crampons. We covered lots of avalanche awareness and assessment, navigation and step cutting today. Loads of action packed skills in a small area in rough conditions. Good day out. Thanks to The Lodge for the lift back down the road :)