touring & backcountry
Mountain Spirit
CairnGorm Mountain // Saturday 2nd June 2012
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Ciste Mhearad Note the colour change. Newer snow below

Looking up to Ciste Mhearad. Below here there was a continuous strip of snow to the waterfall

The end of the snow in Ciste Mhearad

Upper part of the run below the summit tor

Worth going right to the end

Heading up to the start of the tor run. No skins needed

The lower part of the tor run.

Looking back at the tor snow field from just below the tor

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Report
:: Tour Route(s) or Location Skied/Ridden
Walked up to ski Ciste Mhearad then over to the snowfield beneath the Cairngorm summit tor. Went up to the summit then over to the remaining snow on the shoulder of Coronation Wall. Skied the unbroken section and two lower patches then walked down to the traverse.
:: Weather Conditions
Sunny spells, Light breeze. Quite chilly in the car park but was warm once we started walking up.
:: Snow Conditions and Distrubtion
The snow was soft but lovely to ski. It still felt like the snow that fell from the first week of April onwards. There was no hard granular spring stuff.

Best and longest run was the patch below the tor. Lovely texture and a steepish pitch in the middle. I would say the run was at least as long as it was on 1st April but perhaps not so deep at the foot.

As it's the Diamond Jubilee weekend I thought I'd give the remainder of Coronation Wall a final go. Probably not the best idea as the snow here was very heavy and slumped on every turn sending big snowballs down the slope.

A fun day though.
:: Skiers/Riders
Helen and Alan
This report was posted by h11lly at 22.02hrs on Sat 2nd Jun 12