Black Spout, Lochnagar…
31st March 2025
A beautiful spring day on the Lochnagar massif.
Strong, spring sunshine with a cooling and fresh South-Westerly wind on the plateau. Inside the main coire, once sheltered from the wind the temperature was very warm, making the approach towards Black Spout quite hot and a little uncomfortable!
Inside the Black Spout itself there were notable climate zones. Warm near the entrance, with soft snow where the gully narrows and the sunlight never manages to penetrate, cold firm snow patches and some of the turf still frozen. Higher in the gully where it widens again, it was back to soft snow and running water with very soggy turf.
Most notable were some fresh boulders from a recent rockfall. The fallen boulders were perched in the last narrow part of the gully and there was also impact scars in the ground leading up to the section of rock which has lost its battle with freeze/thaw and gravity. We are unable to give timeline of when this rockfall occurred but judging by the colour of the boulders, quite recent.
There were also numerous fresh impact scars on the boulders on the approaches to the other buttresses, not uncommon for cliffs and crags to purge loose rock during thaw periods.
High pressure is going to be dominant this week give some settle weather conditions for the next few days.
Lochnagar 1156m. Black Spout is the furthest right gully with a ribbon of snow.
Firm snow patches inside Black Spout, requiring a firm kick!
Push down, don’t pull…Negotiating with the new rockfall, the colour of the freshly exposed rock clearly evident.
Sneaking past the most likely location of the rockfall, the dark red scar had water running down it, whilst the boulders below show the freshly exposed red granite.
Snow patches on The Stuic 1091m.
A view towards the larger snow patches of Beinn a Bhuird on the Northern part of the Southern Cairngorm boundary.
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