A very challenging period of weather over the last few days with Storm Ciara followed in quick succession by Storm Denis.

Saturday saw the Firbush Winter Skills course head up the lower slopes of Ben More to find some sheltered snow. This sort of worked, but given the very strong winds and quantity of rain, it was always going to be a short day. Sunday was calmer and colder, allowing us to get up the Ben Lawers road and find hard snow to work on.

We saw evidence of a full depth wet snow avalanche at around 700m on the approach to Meall Tarmachan.

 

Wind scoured slopes

Team from Firbush – note avalanche above and right.

Close up

 

Lots of evidence of wet snow instabilities on the hillsides on the drive back to Edinburgh.