11/1/08 - The Skiing 'Kicks off' at Nevis Range

It felt like 'locals day' at Nevis Range today with lots of friendly faces grinning at the superb snow conditions and weather. Great skiing was on offer both on the quiet pistes and over the back in the Corries.

We skied the slopes above the climbers col a few times and enjoyed the complete, fast and pleasant traverse back round to the lifts. After dropping in to dig a pit Blair, Brian, Euan and I also skied Easy Gully. This had a fairly weak shallow (10cm) layer at the top and a more stable layer of about 40cms of fresh - good skiing!

There was no one climbing on the East Face but the buttresses were both hoared and snowy, good conditions But it was a day to be on the planks. Tomorrow looks great too with Sunday distinctly not so great so make the effort to be on the hill tomorrow.

14/12/07 - An early winter Ski on Ben Nevis.... And Snow profiles from Observatory Gully.... In a former life, only a couple of winters ago actually, I could slip my skis on in the patio of my little alpine apartment and slide down to the largest ski lift in the world - offering a 2000m descent for a 40m ski downhill. Things felt a little different this morning as I strapped my Fat K2 skis to my pack and hoofed up a 1000m to find the snow high on Ben Nevis. This journey is now much improved though with the completion of an excellent new Forestry Commission path linking the North Face and Dam car parks. The snow line in Observatory Gully started at 910m from from where I could skin up checking out various bits of ice that had formed. Point Five was complete with thin and thawing ice - I suspect an enterprising and cool headed team could have climbed it a few days ago. Tower Scoop and Smiths were similarly continuous with very thin and slightly thawing ice. Gardyloo and Tower Gully looked to be complete with good stiff snow.

So whilst the buttresses are now totally black and much snow has been stripped back from the gullies there is still good winter mountaineering to be had. I skied down from 1150m in Observatory Gully and got some good turns in on stiff, then soft snow. I dug a large snow pit at the narrows between Tower Scoop and Indicator Wall which showed a good

depth of snow consisting of melt-freeze crystals varying from 0.5 - 1.5mm in diameter. The temperature in the snowpack was generally -0.5C, the snow surface temperature was 0C and the air temperature was 0.5C. As the weather has been mild, but not warm, with a freeze at night and no fresh snow the snowpack is fairly stable and I couldn't get an isolated block on a 35 degree slope at 1150m to shear at all.

The SAIS Lochaber section start their forecasting season today so be sure to tune in to sais.gov.uk and check the forecast before heading out on to the hill.

6th Apri 2007l - Fine Spring Skiing in the West Highlands - Central Gully on Ben Lui Skied....

Thanks to Callum Horne of Perth for this ski report from Ben Lui today....and well done on scratching that 17 year itch - it's a long way down the Central Couloir when you peer into it from above!

"I spent an hour psyching myself up to do it. A bit off putting the audience on the summit expecting you to perform, when your really filling your pants, wanting to take your skis off, to walk back down. - A 17 year itch finally scratched!"

Meanwhile up here in Lochaber the afternoon skiing on sun warmed spring snow at Nevis Range continues to be pretty good. I skied Easy Gully again today which was a bit rattley and could do with a bit more sun to soften it up.

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31/3/07 Alpine Lochaber

A hard frost down to sea-level last night was followed by yet another perfect alpine day with many folk out enjoying the fine ice climbing on the Ben and skiing on Aonach Mor. I met up with Callum Horne from Perth and enjoyed dropping into a very friendly Easy Gully - being a bit rusty on the planks it still got the heart racing! This was at 1445 by which time the gully had gone into shade and ever so slightly iced up again - Callum had skied it at around 1300 and found better conditions then. The Buttresses on the East Face of Aonach Mor are fully in summer mode now and only some of the deeper gullies are holding snow and ice. Teams climbed Left and Right Twin in good conditions. Over on the Ben nearly all the classics were getting climbed again although the team on Stormy Petrel appeared to be having a fairly hard time and making a bee-line for the relative thick ice / safe haven of Psychedelic Wall!