Touchy windslab
21st January 2018
(Above) An early start on ski from Aberarder was the best option today – forecast for deteriorating conditions, with high winds on the tops
(Above) Not so many out and about today (unsurprisingly) – a couple of ski tourers making their way up Sron (slog) a Ghoire…. careful and localised slope selection needed today as windslab was building fast on lee aspects – I got a slope release at a test site on some convex terrain, just to the left of the 2 skiers.
(Above) Fresh windslab cracking readily underfoot
(Above) Some good instability clues around today – I remember ignoring one of these many moons ago in Coire an t- Sneachda - before being picked up and dusted off not long afterwards by our ‘Man in Torridon’, then an instructor at Glenmore Lodge . He and his group had watched in puzzlement the descent of man and rucksack piling out of the gully above them  – only to witness the rucksack then get up and run away! With much mirth he recounts the fact the rucksack turned out to be my dog.  Nothing like a good road test to help make your mind up on route selection! No such testing needed for me these days – big cracks, sweeping out across a slope easily good enough………home!
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