UKC

I am driving up north tomorrow and wondering what may be in nick by tuesday?
Anyone braved the wind and snow and been over to that side of Anoch Mor lately?

In reply to wobblydave:

I am interested in this too...

In reply to AdCo82:

Me also, especially any tips on how to locate the start in poor viz.

In reply to sbc_10:

me too

In reply to wobblydave:

Heavy rain in fort william today, north face car park was empty, heavy snow and high sw winds high up with high risk rating on sais website. All ski tows have been shut today across all areas, glen coe, cairngorms etc due to high winds. We were in northern corries yesterday battered by wind and spindfift making conditions testing. If it continues like that I woyld think it would be fairly unstable for a while

In reply to wobblydave:

Went up golden oldie on thursday. Been up before and it is a very different prospect at the moment - buried! the ridge at the top which is usually very reasonable was super narrow and insecure - so much so I had to dig a foot of snow cone off the top to allow myself to move along it (and even then I had to dig around to get any purchase). Also the gully's either side were full of windslab so we took the direct start - approaching avoiding it proved tricky also. I would advise avoiding for a while to be honest. Especially so if you are not comfy on higher grades than II. Can link to pictures if you wish, will get em up later!

In reply to James91:

Ta mate, pictures would be nice

In reply to wobblydave:
Uploaded a few here, the one where you can see people kneeling on a ridge is towards the end of the wider bit where one of the guys I was with managed to pull out his camera. Really hard to see quite whats going on unfortunately and as always wish I had managed to get some pictures of the properly narrow bits!!

Be careful if you do decide to climb, we were up there for a week, had a good look around and up high things are in desperate need of a deep thaw and refreeze to make things more secure, plus the winds need to drop. Cornices are massive and the weather brought in a huge amount more snow today.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/115656968@N08/

In reply to wobblydave:

Attempted the walk in to the Ben today, we turned around about 2/3 of the way after near horizontal driving rain and 50mph gusts.
I didn't really see any snow but visibility was limited to about 20m.

In reply to sbc_10:

Golden Oldy buttress is the only one of the buttresses on that face where the streams on either side join before reaching the main Allt Daimh. There's a smallish slabby waterslide where they join, perhaps 100ft above the Allt Daimh.

In reply to wobblydave:

This might show the sheer amount of snow a bit better ha! https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152212383496796&set=pcb.10152...

In reply to Iain Thow:

Thanks Iain.
I shall do a bit of research and see how that info fits in.
I would suspect the territory around there has many false starts, especially if the clag is set in for the day.

In reply to wobblydave:

I was on the West face today, turf not frozen, id say the freezing level was about 10000m. We climbed the rib that brings you out level with the top of the quad chair. Ice was starting to form in this area. Further along the face towards Golden Oldie it was alot more snowy but you could still pick out the ribs. The west ridge on Aonach Mor is scoured, moving around anywhere else is hard going, better on skis or snow shoes.