A thaw on Friday of last week and another one on Monday of this week were separated by cold days with lots of fresh snow. It was very windy on Friday, Saturday, Monday and Tuesday. Today was cold with light winds from the west. The strong winds have scoured many approach and exit slopes on Ben Nevis but there are areas of deep accumulations of wind slab. The freeze thaw conditions have produced some solid snow and a good amount of ice.
Point Five Gully looks fat and was climbed today. Zero Gully is also iced up but is not as fat, and it's about the same for Hadrian's Wall Direct. Smith's Route looks good and Minus Two Gully was climbed today (solo) as well. The Cascade looks well iced up as well as Boomers Requiem. There is some ice on Mega Route X and The Curtain, and even The Shroud has a good amount of ice on it. Tower Scoop, routes on the Little Brenva Face, Glover's Chimney, Garadh Gully, Green Gully, Central Gully Creag Coire na Ciste and several other climbs of this standard are also looking good.
The great ridges are all good to climb now. Ledge Route has plenty of snow and no ice on it, Castle Ridge and Tower Ridge have nice firm snow on them, NE Buttress is great but The Man Trap is hard and Observatory Ridge looks good with firm snow where you need it and little soft snow to cover up the holds.
The rocks are well rimed up on the steep mixed routes but there is likely to be ice in the cracks. Snowier mixed routes such as Tower Face of the Comb are more likely to be fun to climb.
The big snow gullies are all very full of snow and we have hard snow down to about 800 and soft snow down to 300m. Another slight thaw and refreeze will go through on Thursday and Friday before a colder weekend so there could be so good ice climbing to enjoy.
Happy climbing!
Mike Pescod
http://www.abacusmountainguides.com/
https://www.facebook.com/AbacusMountainGuides/ 
