Getting Windy and Wet

Today so far has been better than forecast and the expected blitz of rain and wind is arriving late in the day. Yesterday I was on Tower Ridge in pretty good weather and snow conditions. We took a few variations on the west side of both the Little Tower and Great Tower. At the moment the west side of the Great Tower offer climbing similar to the final exit chimneys of Orion Direct and is fully rimed.

If the current weather patterns continue with some cold snaps, we may be in for a good late winter, but don't hold your breath. Certainly a lot of routes on Ben Nevis are in good shape and well formed. Reports coming back from Aonach Mor were not so good and the snow was poorly consolidated up there yesterday.


The first rightward traverse low down on Tower Ridge after gaining the crest from either Observatory Gully of The Douglas Gap


The start of the Western Traverse beneath the Great Tower. After this easy pitch the climbing becomes much more technical and is a good grade or two harder than the normal Eastern Traverse. The Western Traverse was the route taken by Norman Collie on the first complete winter ascent of Tower Ridge. It is also possible to escape down into Glover's Chimney this way by a series of long steep snow slopes and/or abseils.

Yesterday turned out very fine, if a little cloudy. Some action was apparent on Hadrian's Direct and the same team had climbed Observatory Buttress Direct the day previous. At least two parties retreated out of Observatory Gully due to the amount of fresh snow. The foot of the gully now sports considerable avalanche debris.

Elsewhere on the mountain the BMG Guides assessment course were re-acquanting themselves with Diana and Two-Step Corner, plus a few parties also on Comb Gully and Green Gully. One group climbed N.E. Buttress and said it was very enjoyable.


Looking up Route Major from Coire Leis and the snow/ice looks good, as does the Little Brenva Face and the various ice-smears up to the right of that face.



HI ALAN

Don't know if these are of use,

Had a late start solo on curved ridge 3pm!! yesterday 6th march fairly easy going,very little snow/ice until the last 600ft plenty of hard ice!pity i left my crampons in the car. fairly large and heavily iced snow slope after Crowberry tower esp without crampons,also very nice exit slope from Crowberry gully leading to the summit, took about 2hours to top out could barely stand with the wind gusts had a great day learned a lesson and took 3 hours car to car
cheers billy