UKC

Cairngorms next week?

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 Ian Campbell 26 Mar 2016
Has anyone been in the northern corries/lurchers crag area this weekend? Wanted to know if there's much snow or ice left and what nick its in, looking mostly at grade 1-3 stuff for next week.
 ralphio 26 Mar 2016
In reply to Ian Campbell:

Co med there on Friday. Grade 1 gullys all in good nick. Most of the grade 2's looked good though a bit thin in places. Goat track and Red gullys getting climbed. It has snowed a bit since then so I expect they'd all be a bit dodgy at the moment. SAID forecast not great currently.
 Andy Nisbet 26 Mar 2016
In reply to Ian Campbell:

As Ralphio said, there will be routes in good nick at that grade, no promises over weather and safety.
In reply to Ian Campbell:
Was in Lochain on Friday, only routes there in nick are Vent and Couloir, then came down Goat Track.

Sneachda has the following routes complete: Jacob's,Aladdin's,Aladdin's Mirror direct,Central,Runnel,Spiral. Saw teams on Patey's route and Goat Track Gully but the routes were not complete.

Hope that helps.
Post edited at 06:55
 Elsier 27 Mar 2016
In reply to nickinscottishmountains:

Climbed the Vent on Friday and conditions in both Lochan and Sneachda were as noted above.

Bit more snow and ice today, with patches of windslab around and some evidence of small slides in places.

We climbed Hidden Chimney Direct today, another team on Hidden Chimney and on one of the trident gulleys. Forecast to stay cold, so possible more of the mixed routes might come back into condition.
OP Ian Campbell 27 Mar 2016
In reply to Ian Campbell:

Anyone been in these areas today?
 Duncan Beard 01 Apr 2016
In reply to Ian Campbell:

Climbed over Easter in t'Sneachda. Although the gully routes were thin on Friday 25th, it snowed a lot in the next couple of days. The gullys became banked out with reasonably sticky snow but could do with some thaw/freeze to be able to use axe picks rather than shafts. We did Red Gully on Mon 28th & it was an exercise in carefully moving up very steep snow.
 Smiffy 04 Apr 2016
In reply to Duncan Beard:

I also think it worth mentioning mate that we also aborted descending the goat track due to very lose heavy snow and fear of avalanche. As there was no evidence of anyone else going / gone down there that day, I think that we made the correct decision. We also wimped out of doing the Runnel on the Monday as we thought that the cornice's would be large and unstable.
James Jackson 04 Apr 2016
In reply to Smiffy:

Sensible call - I climbed Aladdin's Couloir on Saturday, which had lovely firm snow. There was a rain-crust on everything, though. In the sun it was a bit dodgy - there was a sizeable cornice collapse triggered slide under Jacob's Ladder, and the crust was causing weird conditions when skinning up the East side of the corrie later in the day - I bailed from about halfway up as I didn't like the feel of it. Great skiing though!

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