Infrequently seen guests.
24th February 2025
(Above) Pinnacle Buttress & the Post Face of Coire Ardair. Snow loss! The recent wet and mild conditions have certainly taken their toll but it’s not all gone….
(Above) Coire a Chriochairein before it started snowing/sleeting this morning. We still have old snow hanging on in there above 950m in this E to ESE-facing coire. That altiude is significant because we have nearly 15cm of snowfall forecast over the next 24hrs and any new drifted snow forming on it is going to give a windslab problem there on top of the old snow. Drifted snow forming over bare – therefore warmer – ground should be better bonded. Also expecting new weak cornice development above these and similar steep lee slopes.
(Above) Raeburn’s Gully, hard against it hulking neighbour Pinnacle Buttress. As you can see, the gully line is broken in its lower reaches with free water visible today.
(Above) Easy Gully, between The Pinnacle left and the Post Face of Coire Ardair. It’s fared a little better snow-wise and remains complete from just above the line of Centre Post. Again, plenty of free water visible.
(Above) The NNE-facing crags of the Inner Coire. It might appear there’s some seismic shift in the geology of this high coire above Coire Ardair. But no, just ephemeral visual evidence of today’s snow showers!
(Above) Looking West and into the wind. The Inner Coire and The Window this morning. The lowest point of the skyline here is circa 950m. Expecting this to look a little more wintry by end of play tomorrow.
(Above) Looking down and East into the Inner Coire from near The Window. Some early drifting noted today above 1000m but quite a lot seemed to just stick to the windward side of obstructions, like here.
(Above) Came across a very friendly and cheery bunch from a mountaineering club on The Wirral in NW England. Well met, folks! There was undoubtedly quite a lot of ‘hoods up, heads down’ today but this group were underred by the poor overhead conditions. Winter hillwalking/mountaineering in Scotland is, shall we say, a bit of an acquired taste and they’ll have had a full measure of misery for a time today! Just hope your experience of Creag Meagaidh didn’t extinguish your enthusiasm for the planned mountaineering day in Glencoe tomorrow.
(Above) ‘What have you seen’ in the lean-to next to Aberarder Farmhouse. Always interesting to check out the unusual or rare sightings reported by visitors on the Creag Meagaidh National Nature Reserve.
(Above) A very rare species observed recently some 60+km away from their natural habitat in the Northern Corries of the Cairngorms.
I was under the impression that Glenmore Lodge minibuses by design were unable to turn any other direction than left (in winter) onto the Cairngorm ski road.
(The best entry I’ve seen on this whiteboard was sometime back in the noughties when one wag wrote, “Lord Lucan on Shergar galloping across the Carn Liath plateau”.)
Comments on this post
Got something to say? Leave a comment
Keith Horner
24th February 2025 6:02 pm
Passed the Laggan dam this morning and the spouts were going full pelt to remove all the rain and snowmelt of the last period which has ended up in the loch – very impressive sight. At the time, in an act of considerable irony, the car stereo was playing The Temptations classic ‘I wish it would rain’……! Lord Lucan and Shergar certainly get around!
meagaidhadmin
24th February 2025 6:07 pm
Hoping for a bit Johnny Nash here at nearby Creag Meagaidh, Keith!
Keith Horner
24th February 2025 6:46 pm
Presumably ‘I can see clearly now’ as you reach the plateau…
Glenn Grant
24th February 2025 7:20 pm
Thanks for the picture of the group. We are all members of the Gwydyr Mountain Club. Though Wirral based we are often in Scotland enjoying the weather!