UKC

Headed up into the coire today for some winter skills refresher training, had a good roll about in the snow looking at belays, pits, bollards etc.

Snow level is down to about 450m at the moment, with LOTS of fresh stuff over the last few days. Kudos to whoever has broken trail into the coire over the last couple days, there's at least knee deep snow off the beaten track. Melt/freeze crust lower down, then 750m+ is very much dry, heavy, fresh snow. Some initial freezing in the few small bits of open watercourses remaining (beware of collapsing snow bridges!!), and rime forming above coire floor height.

In the coire itself, the mist was down the majority of the day so only a few pictures snatched when it cleared for a minute here:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152141591280865.1073741854.7386...

Think some of the winter meet folks were in given the number of teams out and about on a Tuesday!!

Snow on all aspects seems to be fresh and deep...we were on the west side of the coire (NE facing slopes). 4 different layers within the top metre of snow....speaking of which, avalanche probe measured depth at 280cm near the coire floor!!!!

Cheers folks,
Gordon

Forgot to say - if anyone recognises themselves in a photo and wants the original files drop me an email.

In reply to peebles boy:

Some people taking some stupid risks to get to the foot of the crags in some of those pictures with today's SAIS report. Aprons and scarps look well dodgy.

In reply to peebles boy:

That's my mate from Finland (HeMa here on UKC) leading in your Evening Citizen pic- although he says he is actually on Para Andy!

In reply to TobyA:

http://www.mountaincircles.com/blog/

Another angle of HeMa climbing Para Andy on here, and some general shots also from yesterday...

In reply to TobyA:

Willing to defer to superior judgement, only had a quick snapshot and quick look at guidebook!! Hope he had a good day, whatever route was climbed!

(by the way, I ended up buying the Simond Belay jacket you suggested a couple weeks back from Decathlon...so far so good, can't fault it at all!!)

Cheers,
Gordon

In reply to peebles boy:

Hi,

Indeed as Toby said, it was Para Andy. Evening citizen would be on the chimney/gully on my left side. Perhaps not visible in the pic, and I can´t see it as the int3rw3b is crap here in Glenmnore lodge...

The route was stellar though, pretty much the top end I could be willing to lead.

Henkka

In reply to HeMa:

Emailed you (and a copy to Sari) with photos of the day, glad you enjoyed!!

Cheers,
Gordon

In reply to HeMa:

Good route eh?

That top crack is unexpectedly helpful.

In reply to DaveHK:
Really good route, the top crack was awesome... just a bit of exposed to get to, had to gather me thoughts a few times before I finally committed. The crack was however completely filled with snow & ice, so had to dig quite a bit for the gear. Also, the traverse on the top of 2n pitch was absolutely stellar, ´cept the mantle on the belay ledge as the snow was bad quality crud and axes just kep ripping.

1st pitch was completely banked out with good quality crust, so made a solo.

In reply to peebles boy:

Cheers gordon, got them pics and indeed it was a stellar day. I´ll get back to ya after the meet (when I have proper connection).

Henkka