Wind, Ice and Skis

Today was windy...and warm, although it certainly didn't feel warm in the wind.

We originally headed up to Ben More, but there was near to no snow cover so we drove back down to Killin in hope for some better coverage.

The Ben Lawers road to the visitor centre was icy. After last weeks epic digging experiences and since we no longer have snow chains until the new ones arrive we opted to park about 1.5km before the car park and trek up the road with skis on our packs. This was rather unpleasant in the wind. Everything in the wind is unpleasant.

The snow pack was also not great - a sheet of hard ice on top of powder so quite challenging to ski on, but then not that much cover.

We played around on the westerly slopes of Beinn Ghlas but didn't head up to the summits as we found mobility with the strong head wind a bit too hard to be worth it. Plus we've done the hills before so didn't need to get the 'tick'.

Heres a few photos and a video of us playing around roughly between 500m and 700m. Cover was better higher up.

Starting the skin up

Beinn Ghlas in the distance.

Briefly practised a bit of self arresting but it wasnt very successful as the axe just ripped through the snow pack as the layer of ice was too thin and snow underneath too loose. Fun sliding down the slope though :)

Axe finally catching

Ben Lawers Area, Ski Touring, 06.02.13 from GetOutAdventures on Vimeo.