Second day of my Glenmore Lodge winter skills course today. We had a mixture of showers and very fine weather and, as promised, much lighter winds. We went back to Sneachda for a bit more cramponing on the flat ice. Then we moved up on the steeper ground beneath the Mess of Pottage, looking at trenching to assess the snow and on through windy col to .1141. From here we dropped down the Cas ridge to do some self arrest practise and look at walking Rutschblocks.
A breezy day for the first of a 5 days of Winter Skills at Glenmore Lodge. The snow was being stripped from some aspects and deposited on others. Donald was able to find some really good scoured slopes left of Jacob's Ladder for his Intro to winter climbing and my team visited the end of the Fiacaill Ridge to look at footwork and self belay and moved over to the ground above the moraines to do some cramponing. Looks like a little less wind tomorrow.
Finally conditions and weather matched up to give us a day away from Sneachda. We went to Coire an Lochain sharing trail breaking with Giles and his team. The wind was quite strong bringing in more fresh snow but we managed to follow a windscoop from the left into the edge of the Vent which we crossed one at a time and on to the base of Milky Way. A pitch up Milky Way we broke right into Andromeda. The right hand groove gave us some steep well buried ice and mixed moves. A couple more pitches took us out the top via a little more digging and a fine snow arete. By the time we topped out the sun was shining again so we ambled across to the Goat Track for our descent. I was working for Glenmore Lodge today. 
The day dawned sunny in the Cairngorms and just got better. The copious amounts of overnight snow didn't make route selection any easier though. Jim and Bill wanted to try something a little meatier so we headed for Fiacaill Buttress in the direction of The Seam. After a careful route choice at the base of the buttress a pair passed us heading for the Seam and a team of 4 abseiled in from the top. The climbed the Georgian Variation to Invernookie which neatly left us Short Circuit in the Middle. There was enough snow to climb the main corner and a teeter up the final slab brought us out into the afternoon sun. We descended Fiacaill Ridge to maximise our sunshine time. Other parties were climbing on the Mess of Pottage and right of Jacob's Ladder. The Guides Assessment reported huge volumes of poised snow on Ben Nevis.
Out on a Guided Winter Climbing Course in the Cairngorms today. There were still limited options for climbing above Grade II. Bill and Jim have done a bit here already so we opted to start up Spiral Gully (because it was mostly white - a dusting of snow on the small bare patches lending respectability and the possibility of harder ground above). We took a nice little icey mixed groove to the right of the main line and higher up the Grade III direct finish. We stuck to rockier ground as the turf was variable in consistency (not really poor but only thouroughly frozen where near icey patches). The temperatures got milder during the day and the wind rose- a promise of colder weather to come! Today I was working for Glenmore Lodge.