Outstanding snow cover- what lies beneath?

Outstanding snow cover on Cairngorm Mountain and the light stayed good for much of the day.Monday to Friday skiing is ace and of course there is hardly a que compared to the weekends and the road is perfectly clear. This is wonderful for skiing upon however while we cruise on skis on the surface of this winter wonderland its worth considering what is happening within the snow below your skis! Climbers and non climbers can see that the buttresses and ski uplift pylons are clustered with white stuff. Snow wise, from a stability or unstable point of view today the snow has become quite stable and you should read the SAIS reports for further and much more accurate detail. However, if you had your eyes open today by the time you enjoyed your morning bacon butty from "Bill's" cafe at Glenmore, or the T- Bar cafe at Cairngorm Mountain you would have seen lots of surface hoar crystals on the sow. This shows us that freezing level is low and right now its actually down to zero meters! This could lead to an interesting and dramatic temperature gradient in the snow pack. If the gradient is strong, this may mean that facets or depth hoar will form. This Kinetic Growth can leads to poorly bonding fragile crystals forming in the snow pack. ( Facets, depth hoar, ladders and cup crystals are the examples you may be lucky enough to see in our Scottish Snow pack. Also today the wind was increasing as we left the hill and Heather on BBC Scotland said there is snow forecast for tonight. I would expect that it will be possible to trigger avalanches by tomorrow if you go the the lee slopes. It's absolutely vital to stay alert and keep your eyes and brain alert for all these signs and clues!

Ski mountaineering- Crubenmore

Enjoyed a short ski tour toady with K around the 550 m. hills around Crubenmore, Dalwhinnie.

Benn Udlamain- ski mountaineering

A grouses snow cave where it spent the night! It's tracks, and droppings are also shown - the skis of course are mine!

A mountain hares snow cave seen today. Note that it's all cleal and tidy!

Beinn Udlamain 1010m summit, my shadow is in the fore ground looking nothwards up the A9 with the slopes and tops of Meall OdharMor and Carn na Caim (941m) on the other side of the busy road.

Well I started the day trying to pollifilla small dents and scratches in the internal walls of my former Police Station ready for painting and as I had enough of D.I.Y, I dressed in cleaner jeans and visited St Brides Parish Church for the 11.15 service here in Newtonmore. An ace experience and one I should probably do more often (Calvinistic comment I know, spot the Highlander!). Having said that I frequent some of the most amazing mountains of the world and these are my cathedrals and churches made (like all of us) by an outstanding architect.

A small lunch and then I drove down south again , along the A9 for a few miles and skied up this wonderful hill. There are wonderful conditions for ski mountaineering right now and it seems that there is even more snow and cold weather on the way. I am sure its frustrating for those caught up on motorways and no doubt every media reporter BBC, ITV, Sky and so many more will be telling us their negative views on snow.... how can we find a way of changing that perspective?

Ski Mountaineering- Pass of Drumochter

I've had an interesting afternoon! Around 2.30pm left the house at Newtonmore and headed "down south" to the pass of Drumochter. It takes about 15 minutes in a reaible car and a bit longer in mine! The fantacstic snow cover tempted me out on to the ski-mountaineering equipment again and this time I went to Geal Charn, which is 917 m and an excellent ski. Parking the car at Balnasporran Cottages I skinned up the track that follows the Alt Coire Fhar which was well covered in snow and after about three kilometers headed north, zig zagging my way up the slopes towards the summit. Disturbing a large covey of around 47 grouse which looked very black against the snow. Further along two white mounatin hares gambolled around and I thought that the birds and animals were a better image than the two Scotty dogs which advertise "Black and White" whisky, which of course used to be made (and possible still is) at my birthing place, Dalwhinnie Distillery which is just north of this mountain. Dalwhinne whisky is high quiality and is sold as a single Malt under the Dalwhinne label and of course like all single malts it is also blended with dare I say "cheaper and not so good whiskies" to make the very popular and rather tasty blended whisky which market a bit cheaper such as "Black and White" and so on. "Grouse" is another famous whiskey named after the wonderful wild game bird which graces our Highland Hills. "Grouse" contains several reputable whiskeys and thats why it is a rather smoother drink than many and one of its important whiskies in the blend is "The Balmenach" which is a product of the Haughs of Cromdale. Balmenach is an oustanding single Malt, if you have the wealth to buy it. And thats if you can find it at all as it is rarer than Grouses teeth to buy as a single malt. The Distillery did go back into production again just few years ago.You my be wonderinhg why I am saying so much about whisky.It's beacuse I drink it and of course my family were involved with the whisky industry for many generations and me, myself, I began my working life learning the trade and working my way up to assistant manger at Balmenach. I am a mountain guide now... which is of course an equally noble profession and not so hard on the kidneys although my knees do feel it now and then! Apparently there is a beer which reaches right to the toes!!!!

There are two summit cairns on Geal Charn, from one you can clearly see Loch Ericht and Ben Alder. It's diffcult to say which one is highest, however its simple enough to visit them both! It was just on 5.00 pm when I reached the summit of Geal Charnand it was 5.48pm when I had my car lopaded u with my skis ready to drive home after a wonderful day!

An impulisve ski mountaineering day!

Like most people today, I was suposed to be somewhere else, but all the snow and blocked roads have prevented any distant travel. So after doing some chores around the house I realised that the weather was really OK so at 2.30 pm I put away my DIY shelf buiding tools and donned my ski-touring equipment and went up the glen behind the village. It was wonderful although on the summit of A'Chailleach (930m) the cold was intense. I am certain that frostbite would soon effect an exposed finger and i took great care removing my skins from the soles of my old and well worn but trusty Rossignol skis! On the way up I disturbed a covey of seven Grouse and then further up the Alt a Chaorainn another one or two isolated grouse rose up and sounded their call. Mountain hair tracks marked the snow and eventually I spotted two making it look easy to run through the deep snow. Their tracks led me up some perfect skinning snow. Further up and nearing the summit I met a group in descent. It turned out to be the local TV and Radio stars Cameron, Lindsay, Paul and Kathy (the SAIS avalanche lady and my fiancee on a day off) . I actualy thought they had gone to film on Schiehallion 1083m, but they had to review their plans too- British weather- its ace eh and of course"The best laid schemes of mice and men gang aft agleigh" ( apologies for the spelling Robbie!) .Anyway, they were filming for the Adventure show and while I enjoyed the banter I must admit one half of my tiny brain was thinking.....that's these wonderful folks were going to be giving away the secrets of the wonderful glen at the back of my house! But, being a mountain guide I better keep my reality hat firmly and squarely on my head and I am sure that if you do venture this way you too will take as much care to preserve our glen for future generations as past generations have already done!

Spindrift and snow in the Grampians

A wonderful snowy day in the Cairngorm mountains. As the day passed by the snow increased and there was spindrift everywhere. Several avalanches were observed with lots of spindrift coming down the gullies. Here is Mac on Fingers Ridge and afterwards we abseiled into Hidden Chimney and climbed the crux pitch of that.
Windy and snowy on the hill as we left tonight, lots of Groupel!

Nice climbing in the Cairngorms today!

It has been a freezing cold day on Cairngorm today with the wind decreasing to around 30mph on the summits. Climbing conditions are really good with good placements almost every where. The Hill was overflowing with climbers! Lisa and I started out on Hidden Chimney but there were about four parties waiting at the foot of the most technical pitch , so rather than que and potentially loose the day, we opted to do some interesting variations which would loosely be described as climbing Jacobs Edge! We went on to climb Goat Track gully, again not our intended route option but the crowds in Red Gully prevented us ascending that! Never the less, we have had a great day. Conditions wise, things are ace, with with the snow pack relatively stable although there are snow showers forecast which will make things more interesting!