UKC

Anybody been up Lochnagar way the last few days, as much snow as Sneachda etc?

In reply to soularch:

Just away to ask the same question - going in for a look at the Eagle Ridge on Saturday...

In reply to forcan:

Be interested to know how you get on. Thinking about Raeburns? or maybe Central Buttress.

In reply to soularch:

read this?

http://saisscairngorms.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/lochnagar-4114.html

In reply to soularch:

At present its rather windy.

In reply to franksnb:

Saw this. I'll keep an eye on the blog they might have more info on Lochnagar before the weekend. Cheers

In reply to soularch:

According to Only A Hill it's pretty windy at the mo, he got blown over apparently! Lightweight.

In reply to soularch:

A photo from today:
http://instagram.com/p/i6be2mqGas/

There's a lot of very tedious breakable crust around, varying from step to step, which makes travel slower than you might think. As others have reported I was also lifted off my feet by the wind today and bodily shoved back down the hill ... Thats never happened to me before!

I saw evidence of avalanche activity in the corrie and many of the cornices looked fragile. The freezing level seemed to be around 900m.

There's loads of snow so with better conditions tomorrow some routes could be doable. Sadly today it was too windy even for the walking route up...

In reply to Only a hill:

Cheers for the info. I know from experience that where you took your photo is often one of the windiest bits on the hill too!

In reply to soularch:

Not much ice about but solid snow and frozen turf was plentiful. Large soft cornices make for an interesting finish!

In reply to samjames91:

Solid snow!? Would have loved some of that on Shadow A! We were gutted to find conditions considerably more challenging than we were hoping, based on the walk in at least. There was nothing but unhelpful crud on the entire route and combined with icy cracks and buried belays this made for a very tiring day!

On a slight tangent, anyone have any thoughts on the tech grade of the crux on Shadow A? Thought it was harder than the tech 6 I've led and completely incomparable to other tech 5's! It is fantastic fun though!!

In reply to soularch:

Pretty good conditions on Central Buttress yesterday, a fair bit of crusty snow but some good nevé around as well, and all the turf felt frozen. Top snow slope totally solid.

In reply to soularch:

1st half of Eagle Ridge was straighforward but bold, becoming increasingly sugary into the the harder climbing on pitch 4. Partner fell off and hurt his hip so we abbed off around 1pm. A few nuts and a quickdraw left if anyone is up there soon - i'l get you a pint!

In reply to peter.herd:
We were in Parallel Gully A, just to the right of you Peter - saw your group abbing off.

Lower down was gorgeous, with hard neve, but the upper half was abysmal - lots of digging for anchors, and on the final pitch, although we avoided the cornice proper, was still a 30-minute dig-a-thon up through the sugary smush to get onto the plateau. We finally topped out (last man of 3) at 18:30ish, and there was still at least 2 distinct groups of headtorches coming down the track couple of miles behind us.

In reply to soularch:

On Turf Route yesterday. 11 hours hut to hut. Some impressive looking cornices around and a sugary snow under a thin crust over the whole route required loads of clearing and/or tentative footwork. Turf Route might now be ok with a freeze having cleared a trench/steps/excavated turf virtually the whole way up. However, well worth waiting a bit for most stuff if people want anything in good nick (i.e. minus the sugary stuff)! Most definitely a character building day...!