The forecast today was for very wild weather in the West Highlands. Despite this, The Falkirk High Tops Team (Graham, Tam, John, Gayle and Iona) and I had a great day out on The Cobbler in the Arrochar Alps.
We chose this venue for two reasons. Firstly, the mountain is a bit lower and receives less snow than other areas such as Glencoe. Secondly, as many of the routes face south the forecast wind should have scoured the face to leave good conditions.
Our plan paid off. We first climbed Chockstone Gully. There is some soft slab gathering in the initial pitches due to cross loading but we managed to avoid moving on this. The wall that is used to pass underneath the giant chockstone had good snow on it.
The slope between the top of Chockstone Gully and the base of Great Gully which was our second route of the day had been blasted by the wind leaving only old hard snow on it. Great Gully was in excellent condition with good hard snow, useful neve on the crux bulge and frozen turf at the exit.
There was areas of windslab forming on similar aspects to that suggested by the Glencoe avalanche forecast and also on southerly aspects due to cross loading.
