Talisman Christmas winter mountaineering course

On Monday I went into Coire na Ciste with Stu, Joe and Phil and we found great snow for practicing all the basic skills - step kicking, step cutting and ice axe braking. As we were quite low down, the snow was soft so it wasn't so great for cramponing but we found a large patch of water ice to gte the feel of how the crampons felt on flattish ice!

I was certainly surprised by how strong the winds were at the Coire cas car park on Tuesday morning. The MWIS forecast had mentioned gusts of 60mph at 900m easing through the day but this felt like 60mph gusts at the car park! We retreated down to Coire na Ciste to dig snow shelters then later in the day when the wind did ease and it became amazingly calm, we walked up to Coire Laoigh Mor and a bit more ice axe braking on some steeper slopes.

Red Gully, Coire an t-Sneachda

A lovely day to be out climbing but very cold though it was pleasant to find it was less cold up at Cairngorm than it was in Aviemore. After a bit of a late start, Ron and I walked in to Coire an t-Sneachda looking for some fun climbing and some ice. Red Gully gave us both with ice in the lower section and more snowy but solid higher up. It was hard to find any protection as the cracks were well iced and I think we maybe found four runners on the whole route!

More from Ron here

Tua skis pictures

Even more snow

Not so much new snow here in Aviemore though it's snowing lightly this morning but heaps of it down in Bo'ness! The snow man was helping my Mum to clear the snow but had to sit down for a rest!

I've been out skiing on the trails around Slochd which are improving every day and now there are tracks around both trails which can only be improving each day.

Photos and videos from Ron here