Nettle and I had a quick outing to Creagan Cha-no today overlooking Strath Nethy. The conditions on the crag were excellent with good snow ice and firm snow, well frozen turf, rocks rimed and with cornices reduced by recent thaws and scoured by the Easterly and South-Easterly winds. There were small accumulations of new wind slab developing in sheltered locations, but these were more significant on Northerly and North-Westerly aspects on the approach from Coire na Ciste than at the crag.
We climbed Jenga Buttress, which has a very good second pitch with fun technical climbing for the grade, and Cutty Sark, which although only a single pitch packs in a lot of good climbing. We descended via Recovery Gully to access the routes. One other team on the crag who I think climbed Duke’s Rib and Fingers and Thumbs. Pamela and B climbed Wavelength in Coire an t-Sneachda today and reported good climbing conditions, but gear difficult to dig out under the firm snow. They also reported significant accumulations of new windslab in the gully exits and a second hand report of an avalanche on Alladins Mirror.
