Westerly windslab and Georgian ski fences
5th April 2024
Today was all about trying to see how much snow had come in on the Easterly winds last night, and deposited onto Westerly aspects. The answer was some, but not as much perhaps as was expected.
Overnight tonight, and during tomorrow, storm Kathleen brings heavy rain and Storm force winds with freezing levels well above the summits. This will cause instabilities in the existing snowpack, with the potential for full depth avalanches and slides on extremely steep terrain, and crag ledges. Rock and ice fall will also be a risk.
Probably not a good day to be too high on the mountains tomorrow for several reasons.
A snowy walk into Beinn a Chaorainn this morning. By the time I headed down, most of this had gone.
Coire nan Laogh. The objective for today, to look for windslab on steep Westerly aspects.
Fresh windslab deposits, found on steep Westerly aspect at around 900 metres. Not huge depths, and sitting mainly on bare ground.
A panorama of the coires (Coireannan / Coireachan ? there seems a few plural words for coire ), of Beinn a Chaorainn.
The larger snowfields and cornices hiding in the cloud.
The Moy Wall on Creag Meagaidh. A Georgian snow fence ! This great feature allows ski access to the Plateau late into the season. Tricky ski down though ! Originally an old boundary between Lochaber and Badenoch. If you look carefully on the ridge lower down you can see it still, before it turns West and heads into the glen.
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Keith Horner
5th April 2024 6:29 pm
I’ve always been intrigued by the rationale behind the construction of features like the Moy Wall – not really high or robust enough to contain stock and deer nor keep the riff raff out from neighbouring counties…. Who conceived of the need to define the boundary on the ground, was it’s construction an agreed joint effort between both sides or not, how was it funded, how long did it take to build and by who etc? No doubt there’s some interesting social history background to it which has been recorded for posterity somewhere? If not, I sense a mine of opportunity for a potential phD student subject.
Scott Whitehead
5th April 2024 9:23 pm
I’ve always found that Moy Wall fascinating – I’m glad it is not just me that looks at the thing in wonder.