Wintry Storms Kicking In

Hi Alan
Yesterday Henning led me up The Seam-- not our original plan, but it was blowing and spindrifting a lot, so we thought we'd better not push our luck on anything harder. The top pitch of The Seam is a wonderful place to be, even in the fierce conditions we were there in.

We didn't leave the car park till 1030 because that was when they opened the skiing road. Apparently the funicular railway was having trouble. (And why should climbers be blocked out because there's a skiing-related problem?? Grrr.) So although we climbed fast, we didn't finish till quite late. And then the walkout was unbelievable-- way harder than the climb. It was blowing a real hoolie by 430 and there was so much snow in the air that at times you literally couldn't see your own feet. There were chest-deep drifts to flounder in, and every time you got on top of a boulder to hop around the drifts, the wind blew you off-- back into the drifts. I've had a succession of late nights recently (long story) and my motor skills were very poor for dealing with this, so I fell a lot. (Curiously, my motor skills were fine on the climb itself, I suppose because I had more time to clock each move-- and also because, on the climb itself, I could see what I was doing.) We had to get out by dead reckoning, ten yards at a time, and in the end we roped up.

Moral of the story: If anyone's thinking of heading up to the Gorms today or tomorrow, I can only advise them to be REALLY CAREFUL. The weather and the under-foot conditions are absolutely savage right now. If you've never been in weather like that, you will simply have no idea just how bad it can get, even in a supposedly innocuous spot like the Sneachda path.

Also it looks as though it has been snowing above 600 metres for most of the last 24 hours or more over on the west coast hills. Great news.