Wintry again after the baking sunshine and blue skies of recent days. Minus 5 degrees C. today on the summit compared to +6.2 at the same time yesterday (when Aviemore basked in +17 degrees of sunshine). The re-freeze makes for contrasty skiing conditions away from the ski area with large expanses of developing crust that made your skis chatter, changing suddenly to soft slabby snow in lee areas. Overall cover is very good and remains continuous above 900m with large expanses at lower altitudes which remain skiable, if crusty.
(Above) At the pit site above Stac an Fharaidh.
Weakly bonded windslab is forming (30-40cms in places) at the top of many South aspects and it sheared readily. Conversely, excellent stability in most other places with a widespread crust that supported skis but not foot traffic this morning. Snow showers rattled in on strong northerlies and became more frequent later. Very poor vis for most of the day.
