Ben Nevis - Conditions

New Topic
This topic has been archived, and won't accept reply postings.
 spartafan 17 Apr 2019

Hi, 

I am thinking of heading up to the Ben this weekend and was wondering  if anybody has been up recently and can advise me on the conditions.

I don't want to travel up and I can't get to the summit due to the snow as I don't have the appropriate equipment or experience for walking in those conditions. 

Any help is much appreciated.

Cheers

Alan. 

 mattking_109 18 Apr 2019
In reply to spartafan:

You can get a very rough idea of how much snow is left from the Ben Nevis webcam. 

Not been up recently myself but for this time of year there's probably isolated patches of snow on the tourist path (presuming this is the route you're looking at), with more continuous snow over the summit plateau and last few few hundred metres of elevation. 

I would personally take an axe and crampons if I were doing it at this time of year, but having said that there will inevitably be hundreds of tourists walking up this Easter weekend in shorts and trainers...

 Billhook 18 Apr 2019
In reply to spartafan:

Watch the Mountain Weather forcast, particularily the day/night temps at 4000ft (Look at www.mwis.org.uk).  If the temperature is more than a few degrees above freezing at that hight, then any snow you meet should be soft enough for reasonable traction.  If you are going up the tourist track there's almost certainly going to be a huge number of 'post holes' (steps), left by countless others who have been that way before when the snow was softer anyway.. 

Post edited at 14:27
OP spartafan 18 Apr 2019

Thanks for that.

Much appreciated.

Cheers


New Topic
This topic has been archived, and won't accept reply postings.
Loading Notifications...