Blue skies and good ice. The crag was split between the snowy side on the left and the scoured slopes on the right. There had been a resonably big avalanche below the East sector with the ice mainly hidden. On the West sector people were climbing The Smirk and had been up Organ Pipes. Another team went up West Gully, and said the snow was ok at the bottom.
We climbed Doctors Dilemma, giving 4 good ice pitches at IV, 4 with scope for some harder variants. The ice varied from initialy being very hard and dinner plating to damp and dripping on one section (I created a leak with the spurt of water funnelling down my sleeve!).
The snow was very variable. On top we found hard windslab that easily released on a bed of suagry facets - easily noticed by the 'whompfing' sound when stepped onto. Other northerly slopes showed a more homogeneous snowpack that was hard to release.
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