13-01-11, Lurcher's Crag, Cairngorms - Winter Climbing

Scotland is currently going through a thaw. The last couple of days have been warm, wet and windy. I headed over to Lurcher's again today with Matt. A lot of snow has disappeared lower down, now patchy on Meall a Bhuachaille and everywhere below 800m. The northern corries are black again, however there is still plenty of snow in the gullies. Freezing temperature has been above the summits making most of the snow soft and slushy. There is still ice left on Lurcher's, just! K9 and its pillar aren't climbable, and I didn't see into Central Gully (but there must still be some climbable ice there!). We climbed a wet North Gully, III. Some parts of the route didn't have a stream running over the top! It gave us 4 good pitches of grade 3 ice.