A Day of Contrasts
26th January 2024
A day of contrasts. Occasional blue sky and sunny spells interspersed with blizzard conditions. There was a lot of snow blowing around, building windslab in wind-sheltered locations as low as 600m. Fresh snow lay down to around 400m and the views (when you got them) looked pretty wintery. It was hard going and slow progress underfoot as soon as you left the track, sinking knee deep into soft wind blown snow/heather and higher up plunging through the new snow into the soft older snow beneath.
Windslab instabilities will remain this evening on North through East to South East aspects above 900m. As the temperature rises and rain sets in, the avalanche problem will then change to wet snow instabilities before the snowpack starts to stabilise during the day on Saturday.
A promising start to the day looking up into Coire nan Gall highlighted with the morning sun. Coire nan Gall has an Easterly aspect and is located at the Eastern end of the Craig Meagaidh range. Lots of fresh snow in there this morning.
Fresh snow on the main track into Coire Ardair during an unusually bright spell. (Shortly after, I was in blizzard conditions, poor visibility and a 40 mph wind).
Looking across to Point 1001m on the Eastern Ridge of Creag Meagaidh. This photo paints a much more realistic impression of conditions today, which were pretty harsh at times. There was a lot of wind drifted snow moving around the mountain.
Looking towards Coire Ardair and the Post Face taken from 750m on Sron Coire a Chriochairein. If you look carefully you can just see Lochan a Choire. Sadly, this is the best view I got looking up towards Coire Ardair today.
Coire a-Bhein. Spindrift can clearly be seen ripping off the ridge line in the corrie.
Comments on this post
Got something to say? Leave a comment
