FRESH SNOW, INVERSIONS, WARMING UP

Fresh snow in Coire an t-Sneachda

Fiacaill Coire Sneachda

Snow and blue skies

Ice hanging on, Fiacaill Buttress

Windless along the Fiacaill

After the early rain and snow

Lots of Inversions at different levels today

More cloud and snow

The weather fronts are passing through quickly at the moment. Hour by hour almost! The cold air mass from the last couple of days was being pushed away from the warm SW airflow today. There had been a fair few cm's of fresh snow overnight and early hours this morning. There was some snow at Aviemore level first thing but this quickly turned to rain. I grabbed the small weather window today for a romp over the Fiacaill Ridge. A liesurley 11am start and perfectly timed as the cloud lifted and we were treated to some fantastic cloud inversions. Down in Strathspey there was a blanket of cloud for much of the day. Up above 600m the air was clear and we even got an hour or so of blue skies at mid day. I headed up into Coire an t-Sneachda and gained the Fiacaill Coire Sneachda ridge uderneath the Fiacaill Buttress. This is a fab, scenic route to get onto the ridge. I saw just one other person soloing The Runnell in the coire. Up on the ridge it was deserted. Lots of ice around despite the warming temperatures. Some wonderful frozen turf for the axe. Hardly a breath of wind on the tops. The plateau has a good covering of damp snow and the temperature seemed to rise through the day. More layers of atmospheric cloud by the time I got back down. Great day! Shame it's going to rain at all levels tomorrow but back to colder conditions toward the end of the week. Looking good!