Susan and I were out today with a Falkirk High Tops Team of Alasdair, Bob, Lucy, Neil, Patricia, Rebecca and Rich. We were looking at Avalanche Awareness and Safe Route Choice; which felt very relevant given the current conditions on the Scottish hills.
After discussing weather and avalanche forecasts over a coffee we headed up to Drumochter and used the slopes north of Allt a’Chaorainn on A’Bhuidheanach Bheag to look at how the forecasts related to what we encountered on the ground and how that might affect our thinking on picking a safe route on the hill.
There are some great features around the streams in this area, which give a range of aspects and hence a good variety of snowpacks.
Sunny pretty much all day with just the odd light snow shower on a North-Westerly wind. Plenty of wind movement of snow observed at higher elevations, although the winds felt lighter than forecast. Northerly winds overnight had created some unexpected pockets of fresh soft slab on Southerly aspects at relatively low altitudes. Skis or snow shoes would be very helpful for travel above 500m in the current deep and soft snow conditions.
