Self reliance is a fundamental principle of mountaineering. By participating we accept this and take responsibility for the decisions we make. These Conditions Reports are intended to help you make good decisions. They do not remove the need for you to make your own judgements when out in the hills.

Wednesday 25 March 2015


We are in a spell of excellent spring ice climbing, especially on Ben Nevis. After the slightly soggy day last Friday it was a colder weekend with many classic ice climbs being enjoyed by many people. Monday and Tuesday were a bit breezy with some fresh snow which has left a covering of 10cm to 15cm on many aspects. A hard frost last night brought in a beautiful calm sunny day today. Kevin and Dave enjoyed Green Gully yesterday as a warm up to Point Five Gully today which was excellent. They had the gully to themselves which was a bonus as well.

I was up at Nevis Range enjoying the skiing. Primary 7 pupils in the area all get to have a week of ski or snowboard tuition and my son Owen was up for one of his days with me as the parent helper. As well as being a brilliant opportunity for the youngsters it was an opportunity for me to do some laps of the back coires! The excellent coaches at Nevis Range were looking after the pupils so what else was I to do? Two laps of Chancer and two of Easy Gully gave me plenty of fresh tracks on soft snow on a very firm base in bright sunshine. What a great place to live!


1 comment:

  1. Hi Mike

    Glad you had a great day, but your impression of perfect weather on Wednesday didn't hold true everywhere! The wind sprang up from nowhere early afternoon and caused some mischief on at least parts of the Ben. We were on Harrison's Direct and got pumelled by phenomenally powerful spindrift avalanches (one so big it knocked us off a belay stance and ripped ice screws from my harness - luckily the belay - two bottomed-out stubbies and clipped-in axes in snow - held). The winds were so ferocious that it was impossible to stand upright most of the time and we ended up having to crawl and claw up the normally easy ground after the main ice pitches, pitching it all the way to the top. Quite the epic, and far from a 'beautiful calm sunny day'!
    Cheers, Col

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