Snow in North Wales

Yesterday I went up to Trinity Face on Snowdon with James Bruton. It has been cold since the weekend and a fair amount of snow has fallen above 600m.

We went to have a look at Snowdrop but found a breakable crust with soft snow or unfrozen turf below. Part way up the crux pitch we decided to retreat becasue of the conditions. Instead we moved around on some broken ground and looked at strength of anchors in the given snowpack.

The day before I paddled down the Croesor, with just enough water. This has some fun grade V drops on it. We also spent a bit of time removing a tree from the first IV+ drop. One bit remains but hopefully in its new location it should have a better chance of floating further downstream in high water. The recent floods have certainly deposited a lot of debris in the rivers.

Scotland Winter Conditions - Cairngorms

Back into Sneachda today to avoid the rain/snow/wind in the West. I went up to climb with Lee (now driving a fiesta courtesy car) deciding to give Salvation (V, 7) a try. After Lee did a great job of pulling through steep overlap, on pitch 2, he discovered thin climbing and no protection and understandably decided to give it a miss. I decided I didn't want to face the same predicament either and so we went up Patey's Route instead. This route is given IV, 5 with icy conditions, but with no ice the steeper sections were a little more entertaining. We abseiled off after the hard climbing to avoid the still unstable snow slopes that are about.
The turf is now well frozen but the crags are hidden under soft snow and significant windslab is forming (it didn't quite rain at all levels last night).

Scotland Winter Conditions - Cairngorms

After playing van skating (and bumper cars with a wall) on the drive over, from Fort William to Aviemore, I eventually arrived at the Cairngorm ski car park. With Lee looking after his broken van I teamed up with Rocio and Dave and climbed Belhaven (V, 6) - which has a good 50m top pitch of sustained interest.
There wasn't as much snow as the west, and what we discovered was much more compact making for an easy approach. All the turf was well frozen, though most cracks were hidden beneath soft snow. It is due to warm a little overnight with freezing levels drop by mid-morning, which will only help to consolidate the snowpack.

Scotland Winter Conditions - Glen Coe

Today I battled up to the Lochan with Kenny and Lee, wading through knee deep snow at times. We eventually made it to the foot of Central Buttress to climb Central Grooves. This is a classic VII, 7 route but hard especially with the snowy, icy conditions (difficult to find gear and axe placements). Lee lead the first pitch, Kenny the second and then we decided that was enough for one day, otherwise we wouldn't finish until after dark. Both pitches were steep and pumpy.
On the way down the snow was a lot wetter and it felt that the freezing level had risen to 800/900m. Tomorrow it is set to drop to 600m with a frost overnight - hopefully helping to consolidate the existing soft snow.