Mid-March weather pastiche
16th March 2025
(Above) Primula in bloom and soaking up warm sunshine this afternoon at Aberarder Farmhouse.
‘Mad March’ mix of weather today in our area. Warm sun, claggy low altitude drizzle, light summit snowfall and colder shade temperatures at one time or another over the course of the day.
(Above) The Big Picture. L to R: The Creag Mhor Ridge in profile, Puist Coire Ardair, Sron a Ghoire, the Post Face of Coire Ardair and The Window. Sparse snow cover! E to ESE aspects in view here though there is somewhat more on the shaded N to ENE aspects – which are not in shot.
(Above) The Post Face of Coire Ardair. Stripped of recent superficial snow but with some residual snow-ice and thin, limited ice in a few watercourses and seep lines.
(Above) The Coire Ardair path was quite busy with a variety of different hill-goers today. Bumped into Lara and her Romanian rescue dog en-route to The Window (and possibly beyond?)
(Above) The Pinnacle and Easy Gully at the top end of Coire Ardair. Quite wintry for a brief time this morning up on the plateau area but the weather relented later and it became quite mild – or even warm? – when the sun appeared.
(Above) Close up of Easy Gully. This popular easy grade gully and descent route remains complete from where South Post starts, continues all the way up to the plateau and is narrowest where the two climbers are in the photo. The wide wall of ice to the right of the climbers is one of Creag Meagaidh’s signature (and much diminished) ice climbs, ‘Last Post’, and when in prime condition can be over 1m thick and 25m wide at the base. Ice and rockfall observed and heard in the Inner Coire today so it should go without saying that the usual health warning applies if venturing close to the crags during mild, thawing conditions.
(Above) The Inner Coire of Coire Ardair with The Window on the far right. These persistently shaded NNE-facing crags still hold some residual ice and snow-ice in a few places.
(Above) The view out from the Inner Coire to towards Lochan a Choire and the north flank of Sron a Ghoire. Recent superficial snowfall is still evident down to 800m on the shaded N to NE aspects but has all but disappeared on any aspect exposed to the sun – like on the left side of the photo.
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