18-03-10, Cairngorms - Winter Skills

Warmer temperatures and very windy today. Snow is getting very heavy/wet/slushy at present, full depth avalanches may occur. We headed in Coire an t-Sneachda today, anywhere high was out because of the wind, most slopes were out because of the slush factor. Second day of PJ Mountains Winter Skills course with Craig and Caroline, we did some navigation and emergency shelter digging. The buttresses are black, stripped and there were a lot of single point release wet avalanches evident all over the corrie. A few teams attempted to climb but either didn't manage to climb or decided to abseil off routes. The wind picked up through out the day and made standing still very hard!

17-03-10, Cairngorms - Winter Skills

Today I was working on a Winter Skills course with Craig and Caroline for PJ Mountains in the Cairngorms. The weather started fair but steadily got windier throughout the day. The Highlands is going through a massive thaw at the moment, freezing level has been high or above the summits the last 4 days, with that there has been some rain. All of this has completely saturated the snow pack and as long as it doesn't all melt away will firm up nicely, but at the moment it is soggie and mush! We headed into Coire Laogh Mor then to pt 1028, on the way we looked at crampon skills, ice axe arrest and avalanche awareness.

Coire an Lochan yesterday, more rock showing through the wet snow, some big cornices above The Vent and Milkyway, generally wet and mushy snow!

I did a cheeky bit of Ptarmigan Spotter Spotting of my own yesterday also!

16-01-10, Highlands Thaw plus PJ Mountains Online

The last few days has seen the whole of the UK having a thaw. All of North Wales has melted away in the space of a few hours. Gone has the winter wonderland that we haven't seen since 14 years ago. I have now driven North to be based in the Eastern Highlands for the winter. I arrived on Wednesday to be confronted with metres of snow. I went out on Thursday onto Meall a Bhuachaille (north of Glenmore Lodge). We had to use snow shoes to make progress once off the Ryvoan bothy track. The thaw from the last few days has reduced snow cover and ice falls at low levels and will probably strip the back of the northern coires and expose some rock! Lets hope for freezing level will drop back below 900m, which will firm up the snow pack, reduce the avalanche risk and make for some awesome climbing conditions.

http://www.pjmountains.co.uk/ is now online. Climbing and Mountaineering courses to suit your needs. There is plenty of availability for Winter Skills courses in Scotland, but also Rock Climbing courses in Snowdonia or Peak District during the summer.

Competitive prices and assurance you will be instructed/guided/coached by a fully qualified, very experienced Mountaineering Instructor and AMI member.