It's definitely still winter in the Cairngorms at the moment, with some very hard snow proving resilient to last weeks rain and thaws - the good stable conditions were enjoyed by some winter skills courses at the weekend, members of the Mountaineering Council of Scotland making the most of their fantastic mountains. Monday introduced some more challenging conditions, with strong winds and heavy snow extending beyond the forecast, fortunately Jon and Ed were keen to look at navigation and avalanche awareness as part of their course - perfect 'real world' conditions existed for this, with some 'dodgy' slopes requiring some caution - a steep learning curve !
Strong winds and heavy snow showers continued to give conditions of some character this week - leading to some high risk avalanche conditions right across the Scottish Highlands - a good opportunity to put some avalanche awareness skills to a very real test ! Thankfully we enjoyed some days respite - making use of the artificial ice climbing wall at Kinlochleven on one day and by using some scoured routes / ridge routes on the other days - it was a full on winter experience ! Thanks to Tim and Alex for enduring the changes of plan because of the weather and for James' / Julians' determination to enjoy even the most challenging of days, especially as it was definitely a case of 'in at the deep end' for Julian
