A brief thaw.

Yesterday we had another lovely cold and sunny day. We went up The Zig Zags on Gearr Aonach in Glen Coe which got us to the finest picnic spot in the glen! We had a wee thaw today with heavy rain to the summits but not for very long. The rain and clouds cleared quickly this morning and we had a dry day with the team from St. Paul's School at Poldubh in Glen Nevis. Looking up to Stob Ban there is plenty of snow left and most of the ice that formed on the crags. It cooled down again this evening and we will have a cold night but tomorrow the temperature will rise steadily during the day. Tuesday looks very warm indeed. This kind of thaw and refreeze is ideal for building a solid base of snow and forming solid snow-ice in the gullies for climbing. The stormy weather over the next few days will be great for us in the long run.

So instead of wading through soft wet snow today we went scrambling, rock climbign and abseiling on Scimitar Ridge and at The Alp in the Poldubh Crags. The rock was dry for climbing The Gutter (wet inside the crack though!) which was a brilliant climbing for the pupils and great practice with their big winter boots. As a finale we went to the Lower Falls and set up a tyrolean traverse. Lots of snow melt made the river very full and it was quite an experience dangling on a rope over the main part of the falls. Well done to the pupils and staff of St. Paul's School; that was a full and very good fun three days.