Mountain Diary and Conditions

Ken: Caspar and I made the most of a settled and wintry day by heading high on Ben Nevis to climb on No. 3 Gully Buttress. We settled on Hobgoblin and finished up Hanging Garden giving a brilliant and sustained climb. One abseil from the top saw us back in No. 3 Gully. Loving my new 4001 boots!

Conditions were nothing short of excellent for this time of year, with plenty of snow and cracks largely free of verglass. The snow is starting to build quite nicely, long may this continue!

A few others were also making the most of today, with ascents of Soiux Wall, Apache, Gargoyle Wall and Slab Climb.

Ken: It seems like only yesterday that we were running our second CIC Hut Week on Ben Nevis, climbing some of the best ice routes in the UK, moments before the world was turned upside down.

Bereket, originally from Ethiopia, has just completed the West Highland Way and was interested in bolting on an ascent of Ben Nevis to round his trip off. Luckily, he was easily convinced to give Ledge Route a go! There's an amazing amount of snow down to about 1100m, but all very soft, as the freezing level had risen well over the summits overnight.

We made quick time up Ledge Route and then enjoyed wandering over the plateau to the summit, having a look down the gullies, whrte the greatest accumulations of snow were. I wouldn't start digging out your crampons and axes out just yet as the snow is all very superficial!

Plenty of people on the Mountain Path.

Ken: Back on home turf today. I was out with Phil, who has been chomping at the bit to climb more classic mountaineering routes in Scotland since he was last up on Skye with me last year. The weather gods were on our side today and granted us a cool but…

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Ken: Yesterday was supposed to see the start of our penultimate 4 day Skye Munros course of the season, but the weather had other ideas and so with torrential rain and howling winds, we decided to not even try. At least it gave us a bit of time to come…

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