Marvellous Meagaidh

 Having made the very lucky decision to have a long weekend over west for John's birthday, Ann & John took full advantage of last Friday's brief weather window to get out and enjoy all this snow we have been hearing about. The choice was the Creag Meagaidh group, which was a good call as the weather for the first half of the day was nothing like as good as forecast.

After a hack up through the trees from Aberarder we got the skis on at around 600m and skinned up Carn Liath, the first Munro, in intermittent snow showers. Snow on the ground was perfect though, bit of fresh on a good base. Although it was pretty windy on the top the clouds stared to part so Plan B was put on hold and off we set for the full traverse.

In the woods

Ascending Carn Liath, wondering if we were doing the right thing

Bracing against the wind on Carn Liath

After that the pictures tell the story really. Great snow cover and quality, and slowly improving weather through the day. 

Coire Ardair from Carn Liath

Approaching Min Window

In Min Window, traversing the only ice we found all day

Looking east along the ridge

Cornices on Coire a Chriochairein

Ascent from The Window

On the plateau, looking towards Moy Corrie

Coire Ardair

We went right around to Sron a Ghoire, then had an excellent run down the corrie on a mix of powder and soft slab which only got hard right at the bottom. The only complaint was that Ann's legs were too tired to tele the whole of it. Forgot to check how low we got but 450-500m wouldn't be far out. To cap it nicely we got a zoomed picture of us in the avalanche blog for the day, taken as we approached the Min Window. 

Approaching Sron a Ghoire

View south from Sron a Ghoire