Tuesday 15 February 2011

Glencoe Avalanche Risk Update

15th Feb update for a ScRL profile.  Easy shears and high risk!

15th Feb Graphic Showing high Risk. Basically most of the Bidean and BEM!


A dodgy place to be a few years ago. The 2 circles indicate where two victims were found and the black one where the last one was located (probe find by me).The shallow crown was 500ft above (blue) and had taken 7 winter walkers.  High winds and the big resevoir of snow in the Glen Etive side make this prone to further release in SE to SW winds. SE today so watch out!
Yesterdays pit profile and forecast for today from Paul Moores SAIS. Strong East wind today (15th Feb) and lots of snow movement ontoWest to NE facing aspects. This wind driven slab on top of some hail and also a very soft snowpack giving easy shears, will make things very dodgy. While the ski areas have shut the risky slopes, there remains a substantial risk for climbers walking into trouble on desecent, or mad enough to venture into a gully. Lagangarbh Corrie looked a bit dodgy looking up. Any eejit who says it's safe after an intitial release is talking shite. Hangfire from other aspects, or a second release over time from wind build up is always a hazard and in particular on popular decent routes folk going up can get taken out by folk triggering a release from above. Plenty of places this applies to.


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