A wonderful day today with lots of fresh snow and a high avalanche risk. It took a while for Cairngorm Mountain to open the road but you can hardy be surprised as there is really just an amazing amount of new snow and the storng winds have filled in every nook and cranny! They are really working hard up there and while its frustrating waiting for the gate to open, as one drives up the road a bit you soon realise how much snow they have to move to to clear it! Walking wise, it's really hard going underfoot and trail breaking requires a huge team effort. Eventually we got in to Coire an -t- Snechda today and the crag aprons were very unstable on all aspects. We manged to move from island of safety to island of safety as there is also cross loading, but got onto the Fiacaill and climbed that. Conditions are good, but the climbs are really plastered. There has been huge avalnches on both sides of the Mess of Pottage and round towards Aladdin's Couloir- The SAIS report says it all!!
On the plateau visibility was poor and it's great for navigation training, Cornises are huge ofcourse. By 4.00 pm it had cleared up a lot and we broke trail to the summit of Cairngorm and enjoyed great views all the way back to the top car park, the skiers appeared to be having an outstanding day!
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