Cairngorm White Out
Posted by Chris Halliday on January 25, 2009
Dan and I had booked the time off work for this trip ages ago so it goes without saying that the weather was rubbish! Several fresh dumps of snow and strong southish winds over the past couple of weeks meant we expected lots of windslab and large cornices to be hanging over the northern facing corries such as Sneachda. The Scottish avalanche information service (SAIS) was giving a category three forecast. Before we’d even arrived in Aviemore yesterday, Dan had had calls checking that we weren’t two of the three fatalities of an avalanche in Glencoe so we gave up all hope of climbing and instead walked into Sneachda to inspect the snow pack for ourselves. Despite the 40-50 mph winds, falling snow and very limited visibility we had a great time! The corrie itself was quite sheltered so we passed the time digging snow pits under Aladdins Couloir and watching other teams do some of the harder buttress routes on Mess Of Pottage. We found around 30 cm of softish snow that was sitting on an older firm and icy layer of neve but there wasn’t as much slab as I’d expected (or at least I wasn’t able to recognise it). When we’d had enough we plodded up the east slope to the exposed platau where visibility dropped to virtually nill and we felt the full wrath of the wind! Thankfully we’d remembered to bring a map and compass with us and were forced to refresh our rusty white out navigation skills. Note to self – If you’ve just bought a brand new map, remember to open and refold it on the correct area BEFORE you find yourself needing it to navigate in 50 mph winds!!!
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article5581569.ece
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/jan/25/climbers-avalanche-named
