Tour from Ben Lawers car park including Meall Corranaich, Beinn Glass, Ben Lawers, An Stuc.

Best stuff on the day was descents off Beinn Glass and Lawers into the bowl to the SE of the ridge and down the Allt an tuim bhric, and bits into Coires a' Chonnaidh and Odhar.

Taps aff (mostly). Very warm in the sun, little breeze, some rare moments of low visibility as cloud drifted in early mornign and around midday.

Very variable cover and conditions with the effect of recent warm/ wind/ rain and snow.

Basically some great (if heavy in places) spring conditions through to midday, but the strength of the sun made things hard work thereafter. North facing slopes had good cover but pretty firm/ scoured. South/ east facing slopes rapidly thawing but good fun. A few small snow slides evident.

Ridges and some west slopes stripped/ thawed completely of snow made for some interesting route choices/ walking as opposed to skinning. Most of the worst cornices seem to have collapsed. Didn't need an axe/ crampons but if it freezes hard they'll be useful.

To the east of the road about 10 minutes walk needed to get to skiable cover, to the west cover down to the dam or thereabouts but if it stays warm the lower cover is thin and will rapidly disappear.

solo

Clockwise circuit, about 10-12k, 4 1/2 hrs.
Starting at old stone bridge, booted up north of burn about 1k to reach snow. Straight up to Carn An Turc summit, quite firm / icy in parts, but a strong NW wind blew us up no problem. Reached the cairn when hit by a white-out blizzard and gale, had to hunker down for 20 mins. Thoughts about finding safest way off top, when it cleared enough to make progress, so dusted off a couple inches of fresh snow and continued to Cairn of Claise in poor vis, pleased to find fence line, which we followed past the summit, then dropped to lee for a more sheltered luch stop. Or so we hoped, another snow shower shower. Once on the tops the going was good, so good we slightly overshot the turn back home. Dropped off down to the valley, nice snow, or would have been if we did not have the skinny skis on - it was a bit soft, so after a couple of tele-turns resorted to body -plant turns! A bit of heather hopping back on skis to the foot bridge.

Great - when you could stand up and see where you were going!
38mph gusting 55mph recorded at the Cairnwell!!

Better than expected

Mark, Martin

telemarkmark at ovi dot com

Glenshee, Loch V, low travers to keep out of wind, stopped for lunch just before Carn Bhinnein, a big black cloud & sleet discouraged continuing (shame as a lovley little top) so back via Carn a Gheodh & along top. About 10k.

Cloudy, above freezing, a wee bit of clear, some sleet.

Fantastic touring snow, fast but with good grip. Some very nice turning snow esp from ridge down to Loch V.

Mark & Jess, (+ 6 other ESTC members on same route + dog)

telemarkmark at ovi dot com

Mini tour up Meall nan Tarmachan

Lovely day out, sunny with some strong gusts of wind but mostly fine.

Pretty icy but some pockets of powder in the hollows, great slope below the summit ridge( so good we did it twice) with a lovely easy slope down to the deer fence. Awful below this! Managed to skin almost from the car, descent not quite as impressive, more snow needed....

Chad, Seb, Viv and Rik

chadharrison1 at yahoo dot co dot uk