07-02-14, Lurcher's Crag, Cairngorms - Winter Climbing

Karl smashing it in on Right Hand Ice fall, Lurcher's Crag.

Day 6 of Karls - Winter Mountaineer/Climber course - Ice Climbing today. We walked into Lurcher's Crag, along with a fair few other teams. Quite hard going walking when not in the track, the ice wasn't as good as I would have hoped either. Fairly buried, but there is ice. Right Hand Ice fall gave Karl a grade III experience, looking at ice climbing technique, ice screw placements and Abalakov threads.

Sron na Lairige

Left and Right Hand Icefall

Abalakov Threads

Northern Corries - looks like no change!

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.

07-01-11, Lurcher's Crag, Cairngorms - Winter Climbing

Approaching Lurchers from the North.

Back to Lurcher's Crag again. This time we left from the Sugar Bowl car park, and after approaching from both ends, I don't think there is much difference. It is a more enjoyable walk back to Ski Car Park, but if the snow was deeper that may be an issue. Today the weather and scenery was awesome. Blue skies and white mountains, the southerley breeze was whipping up a fair bit of snow but that doesn't count as suffering! All of the ice routes are in good climable condition, North, Gully and K9 both had teams on them. We climbed Central gully whihc gave 3 good grade IV,4 pitches and some snow ploding in between. Quality! More snow is forecast over the weekend, which will mean the avalanche hazard will be greater; wind slab will be an issue on all aspects as the wind direction is changing day to day.

05-01-11, Lurcher's Crag, Cairngorms - Winter Climbing

Today we headed over to the west facing cliff of Lurcher's Crag in the Lairig ghru. From the Ski car park, the snow hard with occasional windslab powder over a very hard icy neve base. Strong SW wind has been blowing last nights snow onto SE through to N facing slopes. We descended South Gully, which looked very loaded at the top of the fan, but it was all hard neve. The first ice we arrived a was in Window Gully IV,4 . So we climbed this in 3 enjoyable pitches. More snow forecast tonight with a SW - NW wind so slab will definitely be building up on E thru SE slopes, as well as some cross loading on other slopes.