UKC

Scotland this weekend?

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 kenneM 05 Jan 2018
What are people’s thoughts for Scotland this weekend. At the moment we are considering:

Lochnagar - mixed only? Has there been enough thaw freeze to form much ice?

Creagan a’ Choire Etchachan - never climbed here and thinking staying in the Hutchison Hut might be “fun” given the good forecast. Thoughts on conditions for this area must welcome?

Cheers

Mike
 planetmarshall 05 Jan 2018
In reply to kenneM:
I'm staying home this weekend, but if I were heading up I'd most likely head west to take advantage of the low temperatures. Cairngorms will be bitterly cold (current forecast is for -10 in the ski centre car park on Sunday) and recent reports suggest a lot of unconsolidated snow.

I might consider some lesser travelled, lower altitude crags - queuing for routes in Winter is, IMHO, madness!
Post edited at 07:47
 DaveHK 05 Jan 2018
In reply to planetmarshall:

> I might consider some lesser travelled, lower altitude crags - queuing for routes in Winter is, IMHO, madness!

I'm not sure it's been cold enough long enough for that. There is also very little ice build up in both Gorms and NW. In short, it's not as good as I'd hoped it might be. Still plenty to be done though.

 planetmarshall 05 Jan 2018
In reply to DaveHK:

> I'm not sure it's been cold enough long enough for that. There is also very little ice build up in both Gorms and NW. In short, it's not as good as I'd hoped it might be. Still plenty to be done though.

Yes I'm not up there so can only guess based on the weather and conditions reports. I'd definitely be thinking about Southern Highlands but it's a bit of a gamble for a weekend warrior. The Cairngorms is popular for a reason.
 Robert Durran 05 Jan 2018
In reply to DaveHK:
Yesterday in the Northern Corries involved a lot of digging to get to not really very well frozen turf. Something steeper might have been better, but no consolidation at all.
Post edited at 09:39
 DaveHK 05 Jan 2018
In reply to Robert Durran:

It was the same on Carn Etchachan. There appeared to be some ice on Hell's Lum (didn't get a proper look) but very little elsewhere. Things seem to be very localised just now with very different conditions across areas. Much better than last year at this point though!
 Michael Gordon 05 Jan 2018
In reply to kenneM:

You'd definitely get stuff done on Lochnagar. Given the current (lack of) ice conditions I probably wouldn't bother with Etchachan, but yes, staying in the Hutchison gives a good weekend.

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