Phil and I had an easy day in Coire an t-Sneachda climbing The Runnel, which looked to be the most continuous line in the whole coire. TheÃÂ route was climbed on old hard snow, ice and frozen turf with enough ice in the final chimney to make things pretty steady and only very small patches of soft new/wind blown snow encountered.
The thaw since Tuesday has taken it’s toll with the buttresses looking fairly black (The Fiacaill looking the whitest). The snow has been lost from most of the gully lines (Jacob’s, both Alladin’s andÃÂ Central not holding much snow at all). Alladin’s Mirror direct has started to form, but won’t be growing much withÃÂ the continuosly cold weather forecast. What old snow that is left is now generally very good neve. The thaw has exposed and soaked the turf, which is now freezing very hard. The bigger gullies in Coire an Lochain looked complete.
Other routes getting done were Hidden Chimney via the variation to the direct start, Alladin’s Mirror (looking very turfy),ÃÂ Central Left HandÃÂ and Goat Track Gully.
There were a few veryÃÂ light snow flurries during the day in the coire. However, both on the way up and down it was snowing steadily around Drumochter with about 4 inches looking to have settled at road level (and traffic moving very slowly).ÃÂ The temperature never got above freezing in the coire all day and looked to have been the same down at the ski area car park.
