Schiehallion from Braes of Foss. This proved to be a good day out and a mountain worth revisiting on skis. The first 1km is on a very well prepared JMT path which provided a rock free return at the end of the day. The bouldery summit ridge was heavily snowed up and was perfectly manageable on skis. We kept skins on for the first part of the descent to negotiate the boulders before finding surprisingly large snowfields on the south side of the ridge as described in Malcolm Slessor?s Scottish Mountains on Ski (1970) ?The finest line of descent is to hold to the southern edge, where the ridge is scalloped into shallow bowls, between rocky crowns, and except in a poor season , link together?. For added interest the wooden bridge over the burn 500m before the car park doesn?t have a step so this can be schussed.

We were attracted by 80% chance of cloud free Munros however this turned out to be 10m vis on the upper mountain. There was little wind and temperature was about -5.

Lots of nice fluffy snow. No crust, no ice

alan at snowhole dot co dot uk

More of a checking out the snow trip than a tour however it could be useful to people wanting to know where the snow is and isnt. I skinned part way up Coire Raibert from the road although some snow had melted by the time I came down. Coire Raibert had caught the snow quite well.

Clear afternoon

There were sluffs on some east facing slopes. There was a reasonable base in places on the north side. The approach to Ben Lawers and Bheinn Ghlas from the ?Visitor Centre? was pretty snowless.

Alan S

Dam - Coire Odhar - Beinn Ghlas

Horrid!
It promised sunshine, they had it elsewhere, we got cloud, almost zero vis and half a gale!!

Poor
Climbing on mixed ice & heather for the Coire.
Hard pack icy snow & frozen grass coming down.
All good practice for navigation & combat skiing.

Mark & Ulrike - ESTC, Ramsay STC.

Ben Vrackie from Moulin via Loch a Choire

Clear with sunny spells. Wind less than the forecast 40 -55 mph on summit. Freezing at all levels.

Wind scoured on west facing slopes but enough build-up in small dips and burns to easily pick a route up. Some glazed surfaces around 500 - 650m approximately 10cm of wind slab above this level.

Don, Ewan, Jamie & Duncan

Glen Boltachan then NW to circumnavigate Loch Lednock Reservoir and back to Glen Boltachan. Skiing from 0810 to 1640 32 km

Cloudy in the morning but cleared in the afternoon. No wind. Visibility difficult initially but improved later on.

Good snow on the whole route. A bit soft on north side of the reservoir when the sun came out. Icy on most of the route which was difficult to negotiate on side slopes. Windblown snow was gave good grip. Temp probably -2 to -3.

Charles Bushby

crdbushby at gmail dot com