Monday 31 December 2012

FINAL WINTER SKILLS OF 2012


There was yet another day of gales exceeding 70mph on he tops yesterday but these had eased to a gentle 30-40mph today thankfully. The temperatures during the last 24 hours have been up and down like a yo-yo too. We had snow down to Aviemore level yesterday morning which turned to rain at higher altitudes by yesterday evening . This mornings wet start became drier and the freezing level dropped once again to around 600m by late afternoon. Family and friends group of Ali, John, Andy and Tom were out with me for their intro to winter walking skills day. We headed up to the Eastern side of the Fiacaill Coire Cais which gave us some shelter from the westerlies and we had plenty of snow to develop the skills of movement on winter terrain. There had been some recent avalanche debris here, probably the cornice of the ridge edge fallen off from yesterdays warmer temps. We found some excellent patches of neve on the Coire an t-sneachda side too to hone some cramponing techniques. We finished the day with some axe arresting. Interesting on the walk back down to the car park that the softer snow we walked up in the morning had actually frozen up hard within only a few hours.  Have a great Hogmanay and best wishes for New Year!

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