UKC

The good Ridge conditions survived the brief thaw on Tuesday and look unlikely to get suffer much damage in the next 4 or 5 days.
Things on the Ridge are a lot more hardcore now with big variation from water ice to hard neve and small areas of slab accumulations in a mixed variety of aspects. Pretty unforgiving and likely to take a lot longer in serious sections. The trail of footsteps was still pretty obvious yesterday just disappearing into the few powder accumulations briefly.
Big open chutes such as An Dorus, Great Stone Shoot, Great Gully on Bla Bheinn could be loaded with enough to avalanche and not likely to reduce with plenty of precipitation forecast
Weekend warriors look likely to battle strong winds & blizzards but worth keeping an eye on the forecast for some settled weather next week.
For those who "ticked" the Traverse last week the climbing conditions are pretty damn good too. They enjoyed the thaw and things seem to be developing well with good neve, well frozen rocks & useable ice building; wee thaw Friday should help too. Plated ice & plasterd snow made the step between the tops on Bla Bheinn highly memorable today and could make finding gear challenging.
Come play....

In reply to Mike Lates:

Great forecast for the week ahead with crest still complete, ice lines forming well and mixed all good.

In reply to Mike Lates:

We were up on Skye this weekend and it was in fantastic condition, lot's of rime high up and big ice falls forming. Absolutely magical, get up while it lasts.

In reply to Mike Lates:

I walked past that today. We didn't have the guidebook and wondered if it might be a new route waiting to be done. Soon found out what it was back at the car.

In reply to Mike Lates:

I soloed White Wedding today. Possibly the third ascent? The best quality ice I've climbed on Skye. A steep start to the middle pitch but it all felt fine up to the scoop. I was just telling myself it felt ok for IV (although it would be a bold lead due to a lack of good screw placements) when I got to the very steep crux!

Thanks to Beads for the words of encouragement when I met him on the walk-in. What a stunning route. The romp to the summit afterwards was a great finale.

In reply to Andrew Barker:

Nice one Andrew; ice sounds super-friendly today. 3rd ascent went to Scott & Jonis yesterday but who's counting

In reply to Mike Lates:

Indeed. Just glad to have done it. It'll be interesting to hear what else has been done recently.

In reply to Andrew Barker:

Gonna be quite a list with teams out all over the hill. try to find time to asemble a report next week. Icicle Factory 2nd & 3rd ascents yesterday aswell as 2 ascents of a quality line just left called Spectacula. teams were Uisdean +1 and james Sutton, ben Wear & John Smith. NE Gully on Mhic Coinnich & new line low in Lagan by Guy & Adam, Andy Nesbit 2 new lines at least and Traverses going on at the same time.

In reply to Mike Lates:

Sounds like a bumper week!

Great conditions on the West Buttress of An Caisteal today. Not enough snow and ice on the steep second tier to justify trying it so I followed the standard winter line round right. On the final rise I traversed left and went up a narrow chimney with a chockstone halfway up it. This made a great finish at about III. I have no idea if this was the line originally taken in winter but I thought it made the route harder overall than the II given in the guide.

In reply to Mike Lates:


Uisdean +2, it was a party of 3 we were climbing as.

In reply to D.Russell:

Sorry, yeh just got the story last night. Bloody party time up there

In reply to Mike Lates:

Conditions are amazing, first time placements on everything, almost more ice than snow!