Had a great social day out with Matt and Emma today in Sneachda. We chatted on the way in about routes and what we should do as the forecast was saying that it would get warmer and a lot windier as the day wore on.
We settled for “The Genie” in the end which is a good V, 7 that I had done years ago but as I couldn’t remember much of it I was more than happy to do it again.
The conditions were quite different this time however, and it was quite time consuming scraping the powder off the rock slabs to expose the footholds and hooks. It was good fun though, and fully worth it’s grade today.
The weather did indeed get progressively warmer, with the freezing level above the summits by two o’clock I reckon. As Matt started the top pitch is was still looking quite wintery but by the time he had finished the 40m of climbing the snow was dripping off the rock and on to us at the belay. We abseiled off into the slushy snow at the bottom and were back at the car park nice and early.
It looks like quite a quick warm front passing through, so it should refreeze overnight and hopefully consolidate the snow further.
Plenty of people out in the coire, on the classic gully lines and some mixed routes as well.
