SNOW, SNOW, SNOW!

 

Callum enjoying a windless winter skills

The Cairngorms have been enjoying constant sub zero temperatures for some days now. This trend looks set to continue all through this week. The cold temperatures have been accompanied by almost daily top ups of snowfall. We've had a really cold blast of North to NW to W winds most days. There was another dump of quite heavy snowfall last Saturday, down to low levels. A brilliant spell of winter conditions.  

FRIDAY 3 DECEMBER 

I was up on the Cairngorm plateau again. Ski tourers were out despite the rather cloudy spells. There were breaks in the clouds though and a terrific sunset just as I gained the summit of Cairn Gorm in time for a great sunset. 

Sun breaking through the cloud

Rime iced rocks

Bynack Mor across Strath Nethy 

Strath Nethy

Beinn Mheadhoin 

Good snow cover

Golden hour on Cairn Gorm 

A distant Ben Avon

Sunset 

Cairn Gorm 

SUNDAY 5 DECEMBER 

Since Storm Arwen I've been receiving a fair few 'last minute bookings'. Not sure if this is purely to do with our excellent snow conditions or it's just prompted folk to get out in the early season. December is definitely a good month to get some skills training under your belt so you have opportunities for lots of days out, putting the skills into action in the other 3 or 4 months of winter. 

On Sunday Callum joined me on a 1 day winter course. He has experienced a good number of ski touring trips and summer rock climbing days with the military. Despite being in the army he hasn't really had any opportunity to get out on the Scottish mountains in winter, until today! 

Callum looking forward to the day

Plenty of folk out to trail break and snow plough

deep snow 

Snow down to Glenmore level

There had actually been more snow falling than was originally forecast on Saturday.  There was almost constant snow falling all day and evening. By Sunday morning the clouds had lifted and we set off in dry, windless conditions. There were many folk setting off from Coire Cas carpark. Plenty  of climbing groups and ski tourers out and about . This made the walk-in to the hill  far easier as we now had a trench ploughed through into Coire an t-sneachda. What a joy.

Crampons on

Coire an t-sneachda 

Love this view!

We headed to the toe of the Fiacaill Coire Sneachda ridge and went through some basics of boot and axe techniques. Despite all the snow there are still plenty of rocks and boulders poking out amongst the snow so getting a safe area to practice axe arrests is not as easy as you may think. Callum was soon confident and keen to get up high with a good mountain day. By lunchtime the mountain tops  were clear of cloud and we enjoyed some brightness. For the first time in a long while we had zilch breeze.

Down 

What a view

Looking good

We avoided any exposed bits on the ridge by taking a traverse line on the Western side of the pinnacles. It was wonderful. We were soon on the Cairngorm plateau for lunchtime. Pic-nic on the top in no wind. Great stuff.

All smiles 

Climbers topping out from the Fiacaill Buttress 

Coire an Lochain 

We finished off a fab day by walking over the plateau and up to Cairn Gorm summit. The cloud drifted in again so this gave Callum an opportunity to do some navigation in poor visibility.  There was a final clearing of the clouds  just as we headed down at dusk.

Cairn Gorm 

Fingers

Sunset from Cairn Gorm 

For speed we just walked down through the ski area. A lot of deep snow in here, all the way back down. Won't be long before the skiing gets opened up I would imagine.