Cairngorm Mountain

Coire Cas today

This weekend I was working for Glenmore Lodge on a Winter Skills course. My group was made up of Paul, Owen, Debbie, Calum, Guy and Anna - all from Dundee University Rucksack Club. Today we decided to head for the Fiacaill a Choire Chais up to the 1141m point, then Cairngorm summit.

Cairngorm Mountain today

Cairngorm Mountain was open for business today. There were lots of children and adults having fun skiing and boarding today, especially on the Ptarmigan bowl, and run from the Ptarmigan tow. I even saw people having fun on the Ptarmigan shred.

Coire an t-Sneachda today

Summit of Cairngorm today (1245m)

Ciste Mhearad

We headed for Ciste Mhearad, got our crampons on and worked on our footwork. We even found some vertical snow to climb (out the back of some fallen through snow holes). There were even several patches of ice to play with on our crampons. After all this the guys wanted to play so they were let loose exploring the other snow holes. We had a good explore and found a couple of larger ones.

This is inside one of the larger snow holes in Ciste Mhearad. You can see Debbie, Anna, Calum and Guy. There would be space for at least 3 to sleep or 4 at a squeeze.

Owen then came into the snow hole to join us. There was still space for Paul afterwards

1141m west of Cairngorm on 26th Feb 2012 from Max Hunter on Vimeo.

Well done guys for working hard on the 2 days - best wishes for your future mountaineering and climbing - tell me how it goes...