Last Post!

Just to let you know folks - this is the last South Cairngorms blog of the season. Thanks for all your positive comments. Thanks very much to Grampian Police MRT and Braemar MRT for all your support and photo contributions. (At least you will be able to get into your drying room now that we've moved all our kit out!)

Well it looks like we are going out on a high - infrequent snow showers this morning are steadily getting heavier and more frequent this afternoon. New accumulations are forming and heavier snow is forecast overnight. This will be driven on by gale force northeasterly winds - so read the main report if you are going out to play tomorrow. The cold weather is set to stay for a while - the Met Office are talking about Thursday at least - so while we'll be sunning ourselves down in the Lake District - it will definitely still be Winter up here. No worries though - North Cairngorms will be with you for another week - so you can catch up with what's happening on their site.
Have fun...be safe

Sam and Paul

Snow showers forecast

Broken snow cover. Hills below 900 metres are holding small patches of snow only. Large areas remain on the higher hills of 1000 metres or more. The photo below was taken on Glas Maol and is looking towards the main Cairngorm hills.

We have been forecast snow showers overnight and during Saturday on strong North winds. It will become much colder (-5 at 1000m and -7 at 1200 metres) so the old wet snow is going to become very firm and icy. Any remaining cornices should refreeze and become more stable.

Have a safe weekend!

Lochnagar - 2nd April

View from the top of Right Branch Black Spout, looking across the tops of the buttress

Lochnagar - 2nd April

Don't forget you can click on the photos to make them bigger and play spot the avalanche debris Crownwall from avalanche between Central Gully and Central Buttress
Debris from the same avalanche
Cornice at top of Left Branch, Black Spout
Same again -different view

Lochnagar March 30th

A snowy Lochnagar - March 30th 2008

Happy Days!

Canada? - Nope...Carn an Tuirc! Check out the snow cover...Making fresh tracks of a different sort! No this isn't Alaska...
Grampian Police Mountain Rescue Team on team training.
"The Reward " - The long ski back home...

So as you can see conditions were superb today - light winds and plenty of sunshine with good snow cover. The Grampian Police Mountain Rescue Team and Iain from Braemar Mountain Rescue Team were all out training today - and as reward for good behaviour they had perfect conditions for a change. The equipment you can see in the photos above can make a massive difference during a call-out in bad weather and works particularly well here in the South Cairngorms with the long approaches and large plateau areas where conditions can be wild.

The forecast we have been given for tonight and tomorrow is for heavy snow from the early hours well into tomorrow morning. This will be accompanied by very strong SSE winds that will veer WSW in the afternoon. The distribution of windslab is going to become extremely widespread and great care will be needed.

Having Fun!

Glenshee Ski Area 26/03/08 Today was one of those days when everyone was out having fun in the snow. With soft snow in Glenshee Ski Area there were plenty of skiers and boarders taking advantage of the good conditions, and there were families with sledges everywhere.
One thing you had to watch out for though was the parked cars on the A93 as the holiday makers stopped to watch the boarders making fresh tracks down Carn Aosda or to take photographs of the large herds of deer that are in Glen Clunie at the moment. It is impressive though watching such large stags so close to the road.
It has remained cold today and the snow is only slowly consolidating - so there is plenty of trail breaking still to do. It looks like the temperatures are going to start creeping up tomorrow as the next weather system starts to approach from the Atlantic.

Trail Breakers Required!

Lochnagar 25/03/08
There have been some fairly decent drifts across the Lochnagar track and it is still quite deep in a couple of places. It is starting to get a bit of traffic now and is improving but the path from where it leaves the track is not really that well broken and could with a few more sets of boots over it!
Obviously there is fresh snow in the corrie but you can also see that the wind has been blowing through it as well, so there is a real mixture of conditions to be encountered. It was very cold overnight and the snow remains unconsolidated and weakly bonded. The windchill today through the col was fairly significant and you didn't really want to expose any skin for too long.
Tomorrow's wind will be much lighter and from the SE for a change (15 mph forecast). The forecast is for dry weather, with a 600 metre freezing level and minus 3 degrees centigrade at 1000 metres. So not a bad day really. The recent windslab needs time to consolidate so continue to avoid steeper sheltered locations where deep soft deposits exist. Cornices are still unstable - now is not the time for any tunneling adventures!