Southern Cairngorms Blog & Mountain Info

Drifting on Lochnagar

14th January 2013

Around dawn there was an hour or two of heavy snow in Braemar and Ballater. During the morning the sky cleared but the wind remained strong, predominantly from a North Westerly direction. There were some deep drifts approaching the corrie of Lochnagar from Glen Muick.

As the cliffs came into view approaching the Col the wind speed increased as it often does. There was a lot of redistribution of snow. The ground underfoot was well frozen from valley level.

General view into the corrie. Little evidence of ice but nice to see it looking more like winter again.

Looking onto Eagle Ridge below. Cornices building at the tops of gullies and large accumulations of windblown snow settling in sheltered locations. Areas of old snow exposed to the winds are stripped bare and very hard.

Definitely cold with colder temperatures forecast for tomorrow.

At the main profile site for today there was half a metre of wind blown fresh snow. Tap test 3 “very easy” failure at 13cms depth. Further failures deeper in the snowpack. Earlier in the day we observed evidence of recent avalanche activity on the north east aspect of Cuidhe Crom, releasing on a convexity at around 1000 metres.

For any keen cross country skiers the track along the west side of Loch Muick would have good today.

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