UKC

At last we have had a spell of steady cold weather. Some ice has been forming but we have also had a good cover of snow so it's hard work getting to climbs and hard to see where the ice is.

One team turned around from walking (wading) up to Hadrians Wall Direct today. The ice on this climb looks OK and Point Five Gully looks fat. Smiths Route is well enough formed but generally the big ice climbs are not great. Green Gully and Comb Gully, Tower Scoop, The White Line, Waterfall Gully and many other mid grade snow and ice climbs are pretty good to climb but the ice is not always very solid. Ice has been forming on Mega Route X and The Shroud but I think both are still a bit too thin to have a go at.

The great ridges are all very nice although coming down Tower Ridge today was a lot easier than going up it would have been in the deep soft snow.

Steep mixed routes are well rimed up, frozen and snowy. Icy mixed climbs such as Tower Face of the Comb and Stringfellow could be nice but there is a lot of soft snow on them too.

The big gullies have some cornices on them and skiing is possibly the best way to tackle them!

Happy climbing.

Mike Pescod

http://www.abacusmountainguides.com/
https://www.facebook.com/AbacusMountainGuides

In reply to Mike Pescod:
Just to add to what Mike has posted, Comb Gully was in good nick, with great ice for axes, but less so for ice screws. Green Gully is complete and has seen a number of ascents recently. I saw a team on Wendigo, (the first pitch looked climbable but a bit cruddy in places), and also a team finishing off the first pitch of Vanishing Gully, which looked thin but complete, and seemed to be enveloped in spindrift for much of the time.

Looking at the forecasts, there will be little change over the next week or so, the ice climbs will slowly continue to build, but without a thaw and refreeze, it will be a slow process.

There's a bit of info and photos here: http://www.westcoast-mountainguides.co.uk/news/mont-blanc-prep-on-ledge-rou...

Just a heads up. Lots of fresh windslab being formed this morning, lots of minor slides and small avalanches happening and a few teams retreating before getting to routes.

The first pitch of Waterfall Gully is in fantastic condition and the abseil anchor at around 22metres now has new rope and a stainless ring in place, plus a new wire (from yesterday?) in addition to the three older ones.

The approach to Waterfall was OK, but snow was sliding very easily on the approach to Harrison's and I quickly beat a retreat to Costa in Fort Bill.

In reply to The Ex-Engineer:

Sounds like you and a lot of others were making some good decisions. Everyone I've spoken to this afternoon said the snow was unexpectedly spooky today and changed their plans radically.

In reply to AlH:
Different location but walked for 3 hours in to the bottom of The Resurection on Sgurr Mor on Thursday to be turned around by multiple easy shears in the snowpack and several natural releases from the snowfield. Saved the day with a nice wander with heavy packs around the Munro's.

In reply to Mike Pescod:

Attempted to get to point 5 yesterday (saturday) avalanched from just below to Douglas boulder. Very unstable unbonded powder. Possibly more to go

Make no mistake, snow conditions are tricky at the moment. Use the avalanche forecast as a guideline but there is a great deal of localised dangerous snow.

In reply to Murko Fuzz:

We set off a small slide under Trident area on Friday and stuck to an improvised ridge route after that. We kept in the ridges / mixed thereafter but even in the Coe ' before the snow it was spooky. We did a mixed route on east buttress SCNL then I went to solo NC gully but backed off after several shear tests failed in the vicinity of the avalanche that came down last week. I think conditions need great care and people need to recognise a considerable risk means a single person can trigger a slip .

In reply to Allovesclimbin:

Looks to be a good time to go to W / NW facing venues.

I'm planning on walking up the Pony Track on Saturday from the youth hostel.
(Full winter kit, obviously)
I've been keeping an eye on the SAIS website and if I've interpreted the diagram correctly, it shows that the Pony Track is a low avalanche risk. Can anyone confirm I'm interpreting that right please?

Thanks

Paul

In reply to Allovesclimbin:


I was up skiing on Carn Mor Dearg last weekend- the strong easterlies blasted snow into the Nevis gullies. They looked dodgy from the other side of the corrie! I wouldn't touch them with a bargepole at the moment, which is backed up by the recent slide activity there. There have been a number of human-triggered avalanches since last weekend.

In reply to City-Worker-Fell-Runner:

Yep that's a pretty fair assessment. It's mostly on a Westerly aspect, but does move round to NW aspects at times, which are currently in the localised instabilities bracket. I wouldn't have a drama going up that route currently, but be mindful it can be very icy on the path.

In reply to Allovesclimbin:

There's huge spatial variability at the moment, Im staying out of gullies and slopes.

In reply to City-Worker-Fell-Runner:
The Pony Track itself is fine, however, be aware of drifting into the Red Burn, as is so easily done when not paying attention/in poor visibility on the descent. Many climbers do use it as a quick route down the mountain, so there are often footprints leading towards/into it. If descending the Red Burn, crampons, ice axe and arguably a helmet should be used if it's even slightly icy. The Red Burn is also prone to cross loading on S/SW winds, and so could well be loaded and probably worth avoiding at the moment.

Observatory Gully was devoid of folk yesterday, and very few teams heading high up into Coire na Ciste. The thaw on Tuesday has affected the ice, which hadn't fully re-frozen yesterday. One team tried Vanishing Gully, but aborted quite quickly. Quite a few teams staying low, in and around the Douglas Boulder.

It has been cold since, and so things have frozen, but the ice, in places, will have a hard icy crust and be softer beneath.

http://www.westcoast-mountainguides.co.uk/news/busy-week-climbing-on-aonach...

In reply to KA:

Thanks all.