To be fair, it was a great few hours of quality ice climbing on well maintained routes with some fine hard sections to hone winter climbing skills for...well, most likely more indoor action given the truly bad weather we are having currently (current equating to a month plus)! Boooooooooo...
Anyway, a fine trip round the gear shops, with the only purchase being a hat and a map, saw us settled at Kimber's place thence some scran at the Grog and Gruel :)
Sunday saw us out on the hill with Heather the Weather from MCofS on a fine winter day; the amount of snow above 650m is hard to believe given the rain we've had recently but we plunged a probe fully 10 feet down in a hollow and the pack is about 1.3m deep on the SW aspect of the Nid.
We had an excellent training day discussing aspects, slope angle, digging hasty pits and walking Rutschblock tests, propagation, windslab, SAIS, temperature gradients, layers, graupel, hoar frost and facets, and most importantly, when to run away!
Looking for avalanche debris towards the back corries |
The air is very moist at present, evidenced by rain no doubt, but also by the amazing build up of rime ice on the ski furniture;
Serious rime! |
Best lunch spot of the weekend...
Can we climb now please???