West Coast Hanging In There

After my drive North yesterday, I thought I should go out and see the damage done by the recent thaw.  As we walked up into Stob Corie Nan Lochain, it was cooler than I expected, but still warm.  Although a lot of snow has gone, what's left in the corie should should see out the thaw and firm up well when the temp comes down again next week.  There are some firm patches around, suggesting the temp has been low in the night as well.

A misty trudge up Forked Gully

Sean enjoying the last few metres, with Dorsal in the background

After mooching over to Aonach Dubh, we came back into the corie and traversed the unpleasant crusty snow to climb Forked Gully I.  This was broken at the fork, but passable with little trouble.  There was a team braving Dorsal Arete, but progress looked very slow which could have been down to poor/loose conditions.  We walked back around the corie rim and dropped back in to descend down the main path.  It was dry other than the moisture in the cloud, but we were sheltered in the corie.

With the warm weather set to last into the start of next week, climbing options are limited.  I know that folks have been heading east to take advantage of the drier weather and easy gullies which have held out quite well.