A Lucky Escape...

I've been a bit slack updating recently, been up to quite alot a really enjoying this late season Highland snow bonanza, I'll stick a load of photos up in the next couple of days.



Anyway, yesterday Duncan, Viv and I went for a ski tour round Creag Meagaidh in the Central Highlands. At the moment there is absolutely tons on snow everywhere in the Highlands, pretty much complete cover above 700m with the Cairngorms absolutely plastered (most snow at this time of year for 15 years apparently).



We had to walk about 40mins or so from car before sticking skis on for the first Munro on the circuit Carn Liath. The snow was absolutely perfect, soft and grippy, more reminiscent of midwinter than mid April. At this point the weather began to change from the glorious sunshine of the early morning, the clouds came in, the light flattened and we made steady progress following the fence posts along the ridge tops with occasional views to the massive cliffs of Coire Adair.





As we descended down to the Window (the lowest point of the ridge) the weather began to clear. Earlier on in the morning we'd seen a steeper descent off the ridge that I was keen to ski. As we peered over the heavily corniced edge it was clear that the slope I was after was a few hundred metres further back, I told the others that I was going for a look and skinned back up, leaving them to descend to the Window. There was no obvious way over the heavily corniced rim as I backtracked, keeping a few metres back from the edge(for those of you who don't know, a cornice is an overhanging lip of snow formed by drifting and blown snow). Having been carefully avoiding the edge, I went closer to what seemed like a less overhanging section. Then, deciding against dropping down I was just about to go back and join the others when I began to fall. The whole cornice broke away about 6 feet from the edge, just where I was standing and took me with it.



I saw the crack appear as I began to silde down, surfing on top of the large blocks of snow and ice, falling for about 30-40 feet until I suddenly came to halt, wedged amongst the blocks. Below me there was an ominous rumbling as the avalanche continued on for another 500m towards the coire floor. After a brief moment I realised I wasn't hurt but was missing a ski that had probably been buried under tons of snow. It was soon clear there was no way back over the 10 foot cornice above and I gingerly made my way down to valley bottom along a rock rib.



As I sat pretty shaken at at the bottom, just below the debris from the avalanche run out, I began to go over what had gone on. Clearly what looked like a vertical cornice was heavily undercut and thus prone to collapse. As I looked up at the path of the subsequent avalanche I really shuddered. If I hadn't fortuitously come to halt so soon I would have been funnelled down the gully with it. At best, had I been spat out I, I think the large blocks of heavy, wet snow would have broken bones, at worst I would've been buried under tons of wet snow with the consistency of concrete. Considering the others were over a km away and we didn't meet up again for around an hour, this would have certainly resulted in me dying. Although a cornice could have collapsed on anyone I was definitely too close in retrospect, but the really stupid mistake was impetuously venturing off by myself, leaving little hope of speedy rescue if something went wrong. Lessons learned.



Eventually the others came down to me, extolling the quality of the snow on the descent down to the Window (so good they did it twice) and then on the ski down to me. I'll have to make the trip back up when the snows have melted to try and find my lost ski, at this rate that won't be until June as the quantity of snow on the mountains is breathtaking. Out to enjoy it again tomorrow.



On a slighly happier (ish) note, I went and saw Portishead in Edinburgh on Saturday night, absolutely amazing, Beth Gibbons has an extraordinary voice; at one moment quiet and melancholy and then suddenly a raw, powerful scream. Lots of old classics: mysterons, wandering star, numb, glory box, cowboys. Lots of stuff off the new album, the only track I knew was machine gun which I really rate and of course the spine tingingly unsurpassable roads as an encore.