Go Mountain Goats

We've had a few weeks of reasonable snow, followed by the devastating thaw on Sunday. On 16th January myself and Suzy decided to head up into the Mamores. From the forecast it looked like Lochaber could be a better bet than the Cairngorms, although the opposite was true in the end and the cloud came in early. The Mamores isn't really an obvious choice for ski touring, excepting spring skiing the bowls off Sgurr a Mhaim and a few others, as it's pretty rocky and scree topped, with a fair few narrow ridges. I have always wanted to head up there on skis however as the idea of travelling on skis along the ridge traverse appeals to me. There are also some pretty remote slopes which look like they would be amazing to ski in the right conditions. Also with an eye on the Tranter round, it was worth a reccy. We headed up from Achriabhach onto the slopes of Mullach nan Coirean. Getting the skis on it was straightforward to start with, but then as it got more rocky it became mor...

This weekend I had a couple of good days out. Although the weather wasn't great it was brilliant to see the hills looking much whiter. On Sunday I skied in the Cairngorms with James W. It was fairly windy with clag and a predicted wee window of clearer weather around noon. We managed to coincide this clearing with getting to The Saddle between Cairngorm and Bynack Mor, for great views of a snowy Shelterstone and a mostly frozen Loch Avon. https://www.strava.com/activities/468109538 The ski down to The Saddle was actually pretty rocky and scoured, but at least it was a safe slope - with this much fresh snow around we were thinking carefully about which aspects to ski, especially when visibility wasn't great either. Going up Bynack Mor was rocky initially but skin-able and then the snow improved. We skied down Allt a Choire Dhuibh with some comedy snow topped heather skiing down into Strath Nethy, then back up and over west to the Ciste car park, with a few minor bu...