UKC

Very very little in condition. Only two climbs looked in condition all the way, The Runnel and Fiacaill Couloir, parties on both today, Runnel ice couloir in very good condition. Pottage totally black, Aladinn's very black, Mirror Direct is not continuous, Patey's Route and Doctor's choice minimal ice, Runnel as above, Central Gully plenty of breaks in continuity, Spiral nowhere near in, Fluted Buttress Direct/Broken Gully/Fingers Ridge entirely black, Red Gully nowhere near continuous, Fiacaill Buttress mixed routes totally black, Couloir as above. Some surprisingly large icy steps down and left of Stirling, plenty of continous snow routes from corrie floor to plateau from the Goat Track to just left of Stirling.

Nick

In reply to nickinscottishmountains:

Thanks for posting that Nick, very useful if people do updates like this.

My conclusion is that while the cold spell was quite cold enough, it was far from long enough, given what had come before. Seems like this is a general problem on continental Europe as well. More snow forecast for Scotland could make things a bit different though.

In reply to nickinscottishmountains:

Glad we got up AM Direct on Saturday then, just managed to snatch a couple of good routes in between the torrential rain of Thurs/Fri and the thaw on Sun PM. Them's the breaks eh?
It was certainly continuous Sat, taking good screws, though we abbed off. It didn't carry on much past the chimney, and it was bloody steeeep, complete water ice right from the wee turn off the main route.
Did the Runnel afterwards too, in excellent condition.

I bet I won't be so lucky as to have it coincide with a Saturday again for a bit!

In reply to JohnnyW:

Yeah fickle and rapidly variable! SAIS northern Gorms blog today shows snow on Pottage, that was 100% categorically absent yesterday.

In reply to nickinscottishmountains:


It certainly was all weekend too. Blasted off. And what did I say about a weekend forecast....have you seen this weekend!?