A moan really. Why did you ever change the old format of the winterhighland ice reports, it worked great and people used it. Now this version seems to be a vertual dessert of real eports. what do others feel.

The report style was good and used by many.

Most focus for route/conditions reports now at the (Lakes based) www.climbinfo.co.uk

www.crag-conditions.com Is a nice idea, but not really realistic

Some of the best up-to-date info is on the guides sites, Alan Kimber, Abacus mountaineering, etc.

Not that there has been much to climb this week, lets hope the season re-starts next week......

Anyone know if Andy Nisbet's excellent reports on Scotlandonline.com are now a thing of the past?

Circumstances and the basic fact it was old technology, the UK Ice Conditions Server was around before any of the scripting languages of today, PHP or ASP had been invented.

The UK Ice Conditions Server and the less successful XC reports server begun life in in the 95/96 season, it was basic but useful, and straightforward to use, so become pretty popular. The problem was it's age, the server consisted of pre-complied applications written in C running as CGI scripts, because they were pre-compiled executables, they weren't really scripts at all. However no commercial ISP will entertain the idea of hostitng such a set up nowadays, it orginally resided on a Uni Server.

ClimbInfo came on the scene last winter, this coupled with the very limited time I had available I concentrated on the snowsport side of things. I have been working on a new more advanced Ice Server written in PHP, and this is currently about 2/3rds finished, and will be getting more time given over to it once I complete improvements to the existing parts of the site.

ClimbInfo has not attracted the volume of reports the old Winterhighland Ice Server did, but this may be a combination of poor seasons, and duplication of effort, as more forums and things have sprung up. Orginally I had hoped to set up a shared system with reports going to the new Ice Server or to ClimbInfo appearing on both to reduce dublication, will look at this again.

Last winter with a lean season the forums adequate for the few numbers of posts, plus photos can be uploaded to this forum, the old Ice Server was purely text based.

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We are attracting as many quality reports as winterhighland ever did. climbinfo still wants to share reports but when we discussed it, you did not seem willing to put the time in - as can be seen with your new system taking 12 months to release.

climbinfo already has an extension which will post reports to duplicate sites if you would like to connect to that.

Happy climbing

Tom H

Hi Tom, am still interested in sharing reports, will be turning attention back to the reports servers later this month, unfortunately during much 2003 I had virtually no time available for doing the development work, far less than I anticipated.

What time I did have later on I put into the Wap/colour wap snow reporting service, which is proving to be very useful esp on marginal days.

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Tom & Alan,

I'm a neutral here,as far as site-loyalty goes. But I did very much appreciate the old Ice-Server. -It contained specific info on routes & conditions.

One point I don't undestand from Tom is his claim about number of reports: (Fact- there have only been 10 posted reports in 2004 total.)

The old server would have had 10 reports in one decent weekend. - No excuses, the weather has been tolerable , and there is snow/ice to climb.

I'm in favour of developing new sites & servers, but be honest about it.

H.

10 in a weekend ?? Maybe. My point was season on season, it appears as popular as the old winterhighland did. We are getting an average of 20,000 visits per month - not the ukclimbing type of visits which are all based around their forums. climbinfo is a non profit making (nor will it ever be) site offering climber what they ask for. Our main point is that we get many emails regarding the duplication of effort as such, the dilution of information and we want to avoid this. winterhighland left a gap and we filled it.

Glencoe
Report Date : 23/01/00 (Submitted on Monday 24 Jan 2000)

Area & Route Climbed:

Stob Corrie Nan Lochan: Dorsal Arrete (Saturday) & SC Gully (Sunday) The walk-in is snow free until just below the corrie.

Weather Conditions:

Saturday was breezy and clear, with the wind dying off in the afternoon. Sunday was clear and still, with cloud and light snow flurries in the afternoon. Freezing level well below corrie floor.

Ice Conditions & Other Information :

Fantastic conditions and easily the best I have climbed on. Where were the rest of you? Plenty of neve and ice, but getting a little chopped up by the frequent traffic. Not much of a cornice to worry about. Get an early start and wear your running shoes if you want to avoid the queues! An appeal to the lower party on SC Gully: please look after the quick-draw I dropped as it has served well over the years!

Richard Hare rhare@uk.packardbell.org

Glencoe
Report Date : 23/1/00 (Submitted on Monday 24 Jan 2000)

Area & Route Climbed:

Bidean Nam Bian, The Gash (IV,4). Route in good condition with concrete neve up the ice pitches. Stob Coire Nam Beith looking a bit bare.

Weather Conditions:

weather good

Ice Conditions & Other Information :

snow level just past Stob Coire Nam Beith

colin

Ben Nevis & Lochaber
Report Date : 22.1.2000 (Submitted on Monday 24 Jan 2000)

Area & Route Climbed:

Aonach Mor Large corneces every where. Decent gully very steep, had to ab in off snow bollard. Most route's in good nick, lots of people about, with plenty being done. Climbed Typhoon in three good pitches.Superb route.

Weather Conditions:

Well below freezing with cloud above the crag. Setled weather with clear spells, and good views.

Ice Conditions & Other Information :

As good a conditions as I've climbed on, lots of very good neva about.

the.kenyonclan@bury18.fsnet.co.uk Derek/Keith(Mob)

Glencoe
Report Date : 21.1.2000 (Submitted on Monday 24 Jan 2000)

Area & Route Climbed:

2 bidean Nam Bian Went to do Deep Cut Chimney nothing in conditon at that level, carryed on up to the uper coire. More wintery their look at the Gash, no ice in it at all, ended up doing Caradhras Cleft. (Lean and good Gr 4). Worth doing. Our companions did Centeral Gully more like Gr2/3 very good.

Weather Conditions:

Calm, cloudy and mild weather. Freezing level 2000ft+

Ice Conditions & Other Information :

Very few of the harder route's are formed Gr4 up, Easy gullys in nick.

the.kenyonclan@bury18.fsnet.co.uk Derek/Keith(Mob)

Ben Nevis & Lochaber
Report Date : 24.01.00 (Submitted on Monday 24 Jan 2000)

Area & Route Climbed:

Saturday Point Five and Green Gully (i think! it was dark), excellent condition, perfect ice all the way, very busy- dangerously so.

Weather Conditions:

Good weather, cloud around 4000ft, everything frozen above CIC

Ice Conditions & Other Information :

Easy walk in, no snow, ice perfect, lots of routes in condition, Tower Gully in descent okay

Jon Barton jon@v-graphics.co.uk

Ben Nevis & Lochaber
Report Date : 23/01/00 (Submitted on Monday 24 Jan 2000)

Area & Route Climbed:

Aonach Mor East: Left(III) & Right(II) Twins. Approached passed the top of Braveheart chair and had to walk round some windslab. Others were descending from the plateau on both sides of the crag. Most of the popular routes were being climbed and one party completed Hurricane Arete.

Weather Conditions:

Walked in under blue cloudless skies no wind. The mist closed in during the morning and wintry showers arrived in the afternoon with moderate wind.

Ice Conditions & Other Information :

The general snow level was 20m above the gondola station. The ice conditions were unreal and more than compensated for the drive from southern England. The cornices were threatening but could be easily turned and none fell down during the day. Climbed with Martin Cook

Ben Nevis & Lochaber
Report Date : 22/01/00 (Submitted on Monday 24 Jan 2000)

Area & Route Climbed:

Aonach Mor West: Western Rib(II/III) was an excellent winter scramble once we found the right ridge in the morning mist. The approach was ominously snow free, but as we climbed up the glen the grass and bog gave way to crust and finally neve. There were other parties on this route and Golden Oldie.

Weather Conditions:

We had avoided the Ben after a wild and wet night, but the expected high winds didn't happen. Cloud fluctuated between 650-800m but rose above the plateau briefly in the evening.

Ice Conditions & Other Information :

On the snow was well consolidated but the approach slopes had air pockets below 1 metre. Climbed with Martin Cook

Southern Cairngorms
Report Date : 23/1/00 (Submitted on Monday 24 Jan 2000)

Area & Route Climbed:

Climbed Polyphemus on Lochnagar.

Weather Conditions:

The weather on Sunday was excellent, little wind and blue skies.

Ice Conditions & Other Information :

The route was in good conditions on the whole, a bit thin on the top crux with no cornice problems. The ice is mainly good with some patches of sugar. The cornices on some routes look gruesome (Douglas Gibson) and we had major difficulties escaping from Parallel A (RH) on Saturday. Our sympathies to those involved in the accident on Saturday. Mark, Glenn, Ian & Fergus

Mark Weeding mark-sue&dircon.co.uk

Southern Cairngorms
Report Date : 22/01/2000 (Submitted on Monday 24 Jan 2000)

Area & Route Climbed:

Lochnagar Black Spout Gully

Weather Conditions:

Saturday was cold and breezy with snow falling in the morning. The gully was mostly out of the wind.A day for goggles and North Face salopettes.

Ice Conditions & Other Information :

Black Spout Gully in v.good nick - left branch hard and icy, no cornice at top. All gullies well filled with snow , some with cornicing. Snow level down to loch.

Gullies R Us

Southern Cairngorms
Report Date : 23/1/00 (Submitted on Monday 24 Jan 2000)

Area & Route Climbed:

Polyphemus Gully, Lochnagar. Polyphemus carrying enough ice on both harder pitches with no cornice problem.

Weather Conditions:

Fine wx.

Ice Conditions & Other Information :

general corrie conditions very icy with reasonably good neve, buttresses lightly hoared.

Craig & Nige ncs@econnect.co.uk

Ben Nevis & Lochaber
Report Date : 22/01 (Submitted on Monday 24 Jan 2000)

Area & Route Climbed:

Minus one gully on saturday and Slav route on sunday, both in good nic. A blue and red Patagonia windproof jacket was dropped from minus one on saturday, if anyone found it please could you e mail me at esmondtresidder@hotmail.com

Weather Conditions:

Clear for the first half of both days. Clouding over a bit in the afternoons.

Ice Conditions & Other Information :

Good ice all the way on both routes, except for a bit of shoddy stuff on Slav route.

Es Tresidder esmondtresidder@hotmail.com

Scotland
Report Date : 23/01/00 (Submitted on Monday 24 Jan 2000)

Area & Route Climbed:

Beinn an Dothaidh Route climbed: Taxus (IV) Access at bottom of West Gully (II)

Weather Conditions:

Blue sky day, with some light cloud moving in in the afternoon. Light wind on summit. Freezing all day

Ice Conditions & Other Information :

The whole of Coire Achaladair is in brilliant condition with perfect hard nevee and some water ice. Taxus was complete and well consolidated. There were several parties on it and other routes on Beinn an Dothaidh including West Gully (II) and West buttress(III).The snow lineis at the bottom of the coire,some buttress routes looked a bit thin, but otherwise perfect climbing conditions.

Ruth and Andrew R.H.Mottram@sms.ed.ac.uk

Glencoe
Report Date : 23.1.99 (Submitted on Monday 24 Jan 2000)

Area & Route Climbed:

Stob Coire nan Lochan,SC Gully & Pinnacle Buttress Groove

Weather Conditions:

Clear and still in the morning. Wind and cloud building later.

Ice Conditions & Other Information :

Plenty of ice in SC, the start of the second pitch was steep but in good condition. Ice and turf frozen top to bottom on Pinnacle Buttress Groove. Corrie was busy with parties on main routes. Climbed with Gareth Jones.

Rob Eyton-Jones rob@eytonjones.freeserve.co.uk e

Lake District
Report Date : 23/01/2000 (Submitted on Monday 24 Jan 2000)

Area & Route Climbed:

Helvellyn - Red Tarn Area,Brown Cove, Nethermost Cove. 6 easy gully lines solo Very busy in corrie. ground frozen from 550m but redtarn not frozen. dusting of snow from 400m, old hard snow especially in snow bowl from 750m.

Weather Conditions:

blue sky day. northerly biting breeze on top. some light cloud build later on.

Ice Conditions & Other Information :

Only snow left in the Lakes is in these gullies and maybe great end. excellent hard neve, a little seepage ice and bombproof turf. Routes - easier gullies are lean but possible Pear buttress II, brown cove I, No 2 Gully (left and right), Nethermost gully I/II, crux pitch of no 1 gully is a rock/turf climb but one or two did make it up. V corner and viking buttress both absent. Nothing on brown cove crags and none of other Nethermost cove gullies in. thaw last week seems to have stripped most snow and though cold/high pressure no sign yet of any water ice routes. buttresses bare.

Neil Anderson neil@qcom.co.uk

North West Highlands
Report Date : 23/1/00 (Submitted on Monday 24 Jan 2000)

Area & Route Climbed:

Fuselage Gully, Coire Mhic Fhearichar, Beinn Eighe.

Weather Conditions:

20-30 mph northerly winds all day. Cloud sat about the 2500 ft mark most of the day. Freezing level about 200 ft below the summit.

Ice Conditions & Other Information :

The snow level was at about 2700ft with occasional small patches below that. On the walk in along the Coire Dubh path, we noted that there was practically no ice in the northern corries of Liathach and very little snow. The Triple Buttresses themselves were no-where near winter condition with no ice or snow present on them or the gullies(except Fuselage Gully, that being the only route in nick apart from some of the easier gullies on Sail Mhor). Excellent firm snow in Fuselage with the occasional lean step.

Colin McGregor cmacgreg@amgraphics.co.uk

Glencoe
Report Date : 23-01-00 (Submitted on Monday 24 Jan 2000)

Area & Route Climbed:

Coire nan Lochain, pinicale buttress gully (II/III) crampons essential as soon as snow line reached. solid neve found on all slopes.

Weather Conditions:

clrear to start with then clouded over. some light snow. fairly cold as well.

Ice Conditions & Other Information :

good ice on the route it was a bit steeper than expected and possibly made it grade IV. area very busy with queues on most routes hence our route choice!

Paul McCaughey standon@aol.com

Glencoe
Report Date : Climbed on Sunday 23rd (Submitted on Monday 24 Jan 2000)

Area & Route Climbed:

Coire nan Lochain Soloed Boomerang Gully (II), Easy Gully (I, in descent) and Dorsal Arrete (II).

Weather Conditions:

Sunny and clear to start with, cloudy later. Frozen until well down into the gle.

Ice Conditions & Other Information :

Access path clear until just below the corie, hard snow from then on. Great neve on all the routes, frozen turf and even some ice. What more can you ask for? Climbers on most routes by the look of things.

Huw

Northern Cairngorms
Report Date : 23/1/2000 (Submitted on Monday 24 Jan 2000)

Area & Route Climbed:

Fiacaill Couloir - Coire An T Sneachda

Weather Conditions:

Very Strong Wind and Low Cloud. Freezing Conditions at the ski centre car park and remained very cold all day

Ice Conditions & Other Information :

Excellent Hard Neve existed everywhere. The gully was well filled with snow ice and the chockstone at the top did not present any difficulty. White out conditions on the plateau with strengthening wind provided an interesting walk back into the Cas, however!

Gregor Cobain cobaing@bp.com

Scotland
Report Date : 23/01/00 (Submitted on Monday 24 Jan 2000)

Area & Route Climbed:

Forked Gully (II) NE Coire, Beinn Achaladair

Weather Conditions:

Plenty of sunshine, light N winds, well broken cloud at 1000m.

Ice Conditions & Other Information :

Well frozen neve with occasional sugary patches, especially at the cornice. Took the R fork which was quite lean and icy. Most other routes in the coire are incomplete.

Mark Bull, Fiona Chappell markb@epcc.ed.ac.uk

Ben Nevis & Lochaber
Report Date : 23.01.2000 (Submitted on Monday 24 Jan 2000)

Area & Route Climbed:

Saturday - Climbed Hadrians Wall Direct - Excellent conditions from bottom to top. Other info - Parties seen on Minus Two, Smith Holt, Orion DIrect, Rubicon Wall, Pointless (?), Top to Bottom queue on Point Five - No one seen on Curtain or Mega Route X which both looked thin. Sunday - Aonoch Mor Climbed Barrel Buttress and a broad curtain of Ice 15 metres left of Left Twin - Superb ice conditions, though a fair build up of soft snow leading up to cornice exit.

Weather Conditions:

Saturday - Very strong winds died away about 7.30 am and left a settled day with good visibility on the climb. Sunday - Climbs were sheltered from very chilly wind blowing over the plateau.

Ice Conditions & Other Information :

Ben Nevis - Superb ice on our route - Snow level is above CIC but crampons required as soon as snow reached.

Drew Connelly drew.connelly@secc.co.uk

Glencoe
Report Date : 23/01/00 (Submitted on Monday 24 Jan 2000)

Area & Route Climbed:

Stob Coire Nan Beith Deep Cut Chimney IV

Weather Conditions:

Excellent weather

Ice Conditions & Other Information :

Snow level above base of crag, but all easier gullies in excellent nick and seeing plenty of traffic. Route we climbed was a very thin with some running water. Not much ice build up away from neve.

Matt Mulderigg & Richard Teed rteed@falkirk.housing.demon.co.uk

Glencoe
Report Date : 220100 (Submitted on Monday 24 Jan 2000)

Area & Route Climbed:

S-C Gullie in Corie Nan Lochan on Bidean.

Weather Conditions:

Beautiful sunny day in the morning. Broken high cloud in the afternoon. Only Ben Nevis seemed to be holding any cloud in the vicinity.

Ice Conditions & Other Information :

The steeper ice pitches were in great nick. The shallower pitches varied from excellent neve to wee patches of softer snow. Overall in excellent condition. Other climbers said that all of the gullies on Bidean/corie nan lochan were in good nick. Snow level about 600m. The area was fairly busy, and a queue had developed at the bottom of S-C gully.

Alan MacBeth greencity@net.ntl.com

[%sig%]

Above data grapped from old Ice Server data file, the old server can be seen via the WayBackMachine for the 1998/99 Season.

As a future project I will run a data grab, and extract the data back into a database. One regret I have was that the orginal site worked with static url's thus there was never any archieve of snow reports. Should anyone at Aberdeen University Computing Centre read this and happen to know of any backup files that may still exist from the 90's, please let me know!

[%sig%]

Quite simply there was no other site that was as good as the winterhigland site as far as up to date info on conditions etc goes! Alan, the effort you put into this site was deeply appreciated by me and all the people i winter climb with and it is sorely missed. I don't understand all the technical gubbins about urls and stuff but i hope it is possible to get all this back online soon! We all miss it and apparently so do lots of other people so how about it?

Cheers,

Colin.

To back up the last posting, I'm writing this on Sunday 25th Jan night and the last post was written 6 days ago despite a cold and snowy weekend! There is not an equivalent of Winterhighland on the net at the moment, it was an excellent reference tool. Thanks for your work in the past Alan and your efforts currently and in the future, hopefully something will emerge from the ashes shortly. Meantime it'e back to Climbinfo

To back up the last posting, I'm writing this on Sunday 25th Jan night and the last post was written 6 days ago despite a cold and snowy weekend! There is not an equivalent of Winterhighland on the net at the moment, it was an excellent reference tool. Thanks for your work in the past Alan and your efforts currently and in the future, hopefully something will emerge from the ashes shortly. Meantime it's back to Climbinfo

[%sig%]

Totally agree with other posters. Despite multitude of sites, nothing matches the simplicity and nature of the ice server. It was well and extensively used, greatly appreciated and solely missed.
I hope you find time to get it online this season.

The rest of the sites are too clever or focused on forums where the real info gets lost in multiple threads or in the usual rubbishy chatter !

ukclimbing for instance has at least 5 active threads at the moment on lakes conditions! Why do people keep opening new threads ?

re archive. As a complete saddo I do have printouts of most of the early years climbing reports - if this is of any use.

Thanks for all the hard work Alan.

Neil

Apologies for loss of posts. A host crash this afternoon has messed up the database, all changes and updates since Thursday have been wiped, and I can not directly access the server until I return to base on Monday.

The Ice Server Database was set up last night and has been wiped by this server problem, hence why the pages become messed up this afternoon. It will go back up during Monday, providing there is no recurring problems with the server.

I have been getting swamped now by thousands of copies of MyDoom, there is around 1700 on the server since i last checked email from my own system at 10am!!!

[%sig%]

Again apologies for those who lost posts in this thread, this seems to have been the one that suffered most heavily. This site has been experiencing problems since Saturday lunchtime, the root problem has been a string of denial of service attacks, plus overload of the hosts mail servers by MyDoom emails.

Late Friday evening I restored the orginal UK Ice Conditions server, it got wrecked by Saturdays denial of service attack induced crash, and my posts about it also got lost.

This evening (Monday) I have again restored the Ice Server, and it is now functioning and read to take reports, I have tested everything out and it works, so please don't fill it with test reports.

As I said on Friday evening on here (now lost), I have restored the orginal server due to the regular threads about it, plus many emails. It is interfacing through PHP scripts, but at present the server is in the format of an old version of Winterhighland. Links have been updated to point to relevent information.

However I also accept the valid points about duplication of effort, and will look into sharing posts with ClimbInfo, if either Tom or Jon read this could you email me and let me know what would be required. Sorry for posting this request on here, but our ISP have suspended SMTP email servers to try and get things undercontrol, thus I cant presently send out emails.

[%sig%]