Grim in the Gorms...

Me and Dan headed up to the Cairngorm on Sunday with a view to get some routes done Monday and Tuesday. Unfortunatley we arrived 2 days late!
Most of the Scottish highlands recieved amazing weather over the weekend, with clear blue skies, and great climbing conditions. But Monday was totaly at the other end of the scale!
With an extensive and low cloud base, that rarley broke throughout the day, strong icy winds, (especialy on the Cairngorm plateu), which created severe wind chill, and persistant rain, which wasnt forecast to be as bad as it was, we had a truley grim morning out on the hill.
Having made our way into Coire An T- sneachda, we struggled to find any of the routes as even the base of the crags wernt visable. With already being wet from the persistant rain, it was clear that today wasnt going to be a day for a hard mixed route as we would have liked, as standing at a belay for 40 mins in those conditions would have been horrendous.
We finaly located the base of the Mess of Pottage, after firstly overshooting it and ending up nearer to Aladins Buttresss. We decided a quick romp up Jacobs Ladder, lasting less than 5 mins!, was about all that we could manage, and then a rapid exit from the plateu to 1141 and then down back to the car.
Conditions wise, from what we could see, certainly the Mess of pottage was nicely rimed up. Jacobs ladder and i presume the other easier gully lines was in fine shape, with good neve all the way,(in the morning anyway!) enabling us a quick solo ascent. The gully walls were also nicely rimed, although any ice that had previously formed was dripping today as the thaw set in! The slopes below the Mess of pottage which can be prone to avalanche in unstable conditions, today were pretty firm underfoot in the morning, although i can imagine with the ammount of rain, the snowpack could have became quite saturated throughout the day. Another freeze and some periods of cold weather, would bring some good conditions again as there is still a decent cover.
The Plateu was fairly thin and patchy after the thaw, but more snow is on the cards towards the end of the week.
Also the SAIS starts up reporting this week http://www.sais.gov.uk/

First snow of the year.

People up in the Scottish highlands woke up this morning to the first snow of the season up on the hills.

Looks like the Cairngorm especially got quite a dusting in yesterdays storms.

Also Ben Nevis and Lochaber recieved a light dusting over the tops, so time to get training for this winter season. Hope its going to be a good one!!

Heres a short movie to get the psche going, produced by Dan at Mountainplan,
http://www.mountainplan.com/, which features me and Dan!

Time to sharpen the axes!!