UKC

Waterfall Gully is back to being a waterfall..Gemini has gone , The Curtain is incomplete Mega Route X is incomplete and Vanishing Gully has vanished. The "clag" came down so that was all i could see : (

In reply to luckyjim:
Here's a summary of what I saw on Ben Nevis today:

Castle Gullies complete, Boomer's Requiem complete but looks thin, Shroud amazingly still complete but very, very thin, Curtain, Mega Route X, Vanishing Gully, Gemini, Waterfall Gully, Harrison's all gone, Central Gullies on Creag Coire na Ciste complete, but with large cornices above. Winter Chimney climbed today, reportedly hard for the grade, Thompson's looks good if a little lean, also climbed today, 2 Step looks possible, hard to be sure, Green Gully looks fine, teams on Comb Gully. Glovers looks fine from a distance, as does Comb Gully Buttress. No 2 Gully fine, Cascades look ok, maybe a bit thin at top, Italian looks ok, maybe a bit soft, R/H looks complete and climbable but thin at the bottom. The Chute gone. Nothing on Douglas Boulder worth climbing. Tower Scoop good, Smith's Route busy, Psychedelic Wall, Indicator & R/H climbed today, Good Friday fine, Observatory Buttress nowhere close, Point 5 looks like it has a big gap in the ice, two teams walked away from it. The only other route that looks worth doing is Hadrians Wall, which saw a couple of ascents. Couldn't quite see Zero, but Orion Direct is way off & Minus Gullies all in the sea.

Photos and full blog: http://www.applemountaineering.co.uk/2015/03/08/after-the-thaw-indicator-ri...

In reply to KA:

I didn't look that hard but I thought point five looked complete, apparently the parties backed off as it was more like a waterfall.

Tower scoop was more like a waterfall than an ice climb today and smiths route had ok ice on the first pitch and lots of unfrozen crud on the second pitch.

Nice walk in and out today once the rain stopped though! http://www.masterplan-mountaineering.co.uk/2015/03/smiths-route-tower-scoop...

In reply to alastairbegley:
There's a big Y-shaped band of grey about 30/40m up first pitch, before narrowings, it's just visible in your photo, slightly more obvious in mine.

In reply to KA:

Indicator Wall very mushy on first pitch, assume much the same for other climbs up to 1200m today. Second pitch was good and took screws.

In reply to KA:

Fair enough, only took a brief glance as we went past

In reply to KA:

Observatory Buttress was fine after the first pitch which was in mixed condition. The SMC Ben Nevis guide says this is often the case anyway?!

In reply to luckyjim:

The White Line? Still in?

In reply to luckyjim:

We climbed Hadrians yesterday. For anyone interested in Point 5; it does have a split/hole around the start of the second pitch. If you zoom in on the first picture on my blog you can see a dark patch which is hard to see from underneath the route, you also get a feel for how snowy/slushy it looked yesterday. And yes it definitely had a torrent of water running through it!

http://verticalfever.co.uk/2015/03/08/hadrians-wall-direct/

In reply to SteveHolmes:

We were on Hadrian's on Sunday too...pretty wild at times. Do you think Point Five will be climable given the hole in it? Was thinking about going up there on Tuesday.
Thanks.

In reply to stephan harrison:

Sorry for late reply. Was on the Ben today, the hole on Point 5 looked like it had been filled in although it's very white and snowy looking rather than ice. I didn't see anyone on it today but maybe someone did climb it?
We climbed Smiths Route which was in superb condition. Lots of other teams out on Indicator Wall reporting good ice.

http://verticalfever.co.uk/2015/03/10/more-ben-nevis-ice/

In reply to SteveHolmes:

Saw at least 2 parties on Point 5 at the snow field at about 5pm. Smiths had a continuous stream of climbers from morning till evening - I didn't see it without at least two teams on it all day

We climbed Indicator Right-Hand (V 5), ice was excellent.

In reply to SteveHolmes:

Hi Steve
Thanks for this. We climbed it on Tuesday....the hole had filled in but was full of soft snow. Glad I wasn't leading!!

Cheers.
Stephan