April has brought some of the best mountaineering and climbing
conditions we've seen for a few years. The month started cold and
dry with a few frosts down to sea level. As the days turned
increasingly sunny, a sharp easterly breeze with very low humidity
meant the North West Highlands had the best weather in the UK. All
of these pictures were taken in the last two weeks.
The first shows the snow-capped
Torridon mountains taken from the Melvaig
peninsula; the second is action at the sheltered south-facing Kuhjo
Crag near Gairloch; the third is
An
Teallach taken on a guided day out to the summits.
Tags: Kuhjo Crag, An
Teallach, Wester Ross
Although forecast for broken sunshine, December 29th brought a long
spell of miserable horizontal hail and sleet. Winter days like this
present their own challenges such as difficult navigation while
staying out of the worst winds. For example, on Thursday Helen,
Simon and Tom were undaunted by the early conditions and wanted to
stick to our plan of a winter skills day on
An
Teallach. After reaching the top of Mac is Mathair in a howling
gale we crossed the plateau north of the main summits well above
the cloud level to the coll just north of Bidein a' Ghlas Thuill -
one of the two An Teallach munros. The wind was far less fierce
here and the cloud broke for us long enough to get a view of the
vast Glass Tholl corrie. As the weather eased we reached that top
before descending back to the coll (pictured). After practising
some ice axe arrests, we then dropped down the long path North East
to Dundonnell. The whole day took about nine hours. Check out our
winter pages for more options.
Tags: An Teallach, Winter
This weekend saw some stormy cold
weather sweep over the North West bringing some wild winter
conditions to the higher tops. This picture, taken yesterday, is
from the summit of Sgurr Fiona on An Teallach looking south to Gleann Na Muice.The strong south
westerly brought significant snow showers that settled above 800
meters.
The picture below was taken from near the summit of Sgurr Creag an
Eich along the North West Ridge of An Teallach. The furthest point
on this ridge that you can see is the 760 meter summit - Sgurr
Ruadh. Half way along the ridge you can make out the Coastguard
Rescue helicopter which set down to drop off members of
Dundonnell Mountain Rescue Team. These pictures were taken during a training
exercise with DMRT.
Tags: An Teallach, Winter
