A nice sunny day

Stable spring snow conditions at lower altitudes; a cooler snowpack with localised instabilities at higher shaded elevations. 

Heather hopping required at 600 metres

Great ski touring on spring snow

Mild and dry

Good snow cover, with sun crust developing.

The weak facet layer is still presenting a weak snowpack especially in areas of steep convex terrain.  Careful route finding and spacing is needed in these areas.

Better Weather

Looking toward the Northern Corries  - Sneachda and Coire Lochain

Areas of deep poorly bonded windslab are present on many W through N to E aspects above 600 metres especially on steep convex slopes  - good route finding skills required

Avalanche crown wall and debris from triggered avalanche at 700m altitude on  a North -West aspect.
deep instabilities will persist with steep areas and convexities especially affected.

Heavy Snowfall and Severe Drifting

Conditions at 600m BBC sound recordist Chris with mike.

Very severe drifting and poor visibility with a clear avalanche hazard today especially high up

Very cold with much lighter winds today

Good cover after recent storm snow, hard going underfoot unless your on the main trod.

Buttresses looking very wintry. 

Poor visibility, cold with spindrift

Ciste Crag.  Strong winds with plenty of spindrift blowing around.

Looking up the Ciste Gully, poor visibility with plenty of snow

The weather began to improve by early afternoon but still plenty of drifting even at 550m

Busy Cairngorm day

A break in the clouds at 1000m reveals a busy ski area.

Great ski touring between banks of cloud

But not much fun for the ski tourer at the saddle with a broken ankle.

A glimpse of the Northern Corries

Pea soup for most of the day above 900m.

Visibility at last

Cold, Calm and Wintry

Skiing on the hard windslab at the top of Corrie Raibert

Looking to Stacan Dubha and  Carn Etchachan.

less snow about than you would imagine - generally firm snow conditions  and scoured on the plateau

Blizzards over the highlands

Deep drifts are developing even at lower altitudes. These photo's were taken at around 800 metres.  The new windslab is weakly bonded.  The forecast is for heavier snow with strong winds overnight and tomorrow.

Thawing at lower levels

The thaw hasn't affected the snow cover too much.  The crags are generally snow covered and large snowfields still exist down to 600 metres.

Avalanche day

Drifting on Beinn Mheadhoin

Fiacaill Buttress

Although the snow distribution looks fairly lean on this Easterly aspect in Sneachda there were two avalanche incidents both within a short space of time today with crown wall of up to and over one foot in height.   People were carried down on both occasions through particularly unpleasant terrain, but thankfully everyone survived to tell the tale.  Thanks fo Glenmore Lodge instructor "Kevin" for the photo's.

Fiacaill buttress

Needles and graupel

Very poor visibility today so no panoramic views.  Instead here's a close up shot of the most recent windslab.  A combination on needles, seen above and graupel seen below, both aid snowpack instabilities.

A Respite from the wind !

Party heading across the Cairngorm Plateau - looking South toward Loch Etchachan

Looking across Coire an t Sneachda cliffs

A good morning but all too brief, as the wind increased it started snowing and visibility became poor in the afternoon

Stormy again !

Coire an Lochain from Lurchers Ridge area

The snowpack has transformed in the freeze that cycles and is generally pretty well bonded but steep places are still to be suspected to retain instabilities - note large cornices

Depth Hoar (3mm grid squares) grains at 1000m on a NW aspect nr twin Burns - ground level

A  grain layer that has been subjected to a prolonged steep temperature gradient,  becoming  facets which has then developed into depth hoar or cup crystals  (note striations )- a weak sugar like, loose grain layer  at ground - this is now wet but is currently supported  by strong layers above.

Stormy

A very Stormy Coire an t Sneachda

Lots of drifting up high and deep unstable windslab in sheltered locations where the wind has not scoured bare and also lower down into locations relatively sheltered - calm in the coire but worse in the mouth and approach as the winds gathered speed.

Thaw followed by a freeze

Avalanche debris below Goat Track gully after last nights thaw.

Group moving up on breakable crust

Avalanche debris from trident Gullies Sneachda

Flat ice and Fiacaill buttress looking good.

Snow showers arrived by the afternoon

Clear and bright

Drifting on the Fiacaill Chais ridge

Raised footprints on this wind exposed West facing slope

Coire an t-Sneachda

Fiacaill Buttress with Lochain behind

Good all round winter conditions

Heavy Snow and Drifting

Using a probe to determine layers and depth at 1100m NW aspect

Severe drifting and sttrong winds are piling in the snow onto most aspects - mainly those places sheltered from the very strong Southerly winds - The snow has scoured large areas and redisrtibuted it elsewhere. The areas where the windslab has accumulated is pretty weak especially in steep convex places.

Cold with strengthening S wind

lone skier heading toward Cairngorm

Coire an t Sneachda

Looking North from the Cairngorm Plateau - Coire Chais below

Generally pretty well scoured but with deeper accumulations on specific slopes SW, W NW -

Calmer with views, but where the Snow Gone !

Scoured at base of crags and on r (east aspects) with old neve exposed - windslab loading in gullies and on West aspects with old crown walls from avalanches on L of Mess of Potage - lots of scoured areas but deep snow and drifts too !

Looking North to The Spey Valley

Coire an t Sneachda

Coire an t Sneachda