Walking into Sneachda this morning was a miserable experience, it was warm, windy, drizzly and there was hardly any snow under foot.  I was a little disappointed and didn’t expect to find any routes in condition despite Rons optimism.  I was wrong, all the main gully lines were full of firmish snow and things improved as we got higher.  We abandoned the plan to climb Mirror Direct because of the rain and headed off towards the Runnel instead.  I lead the first pitch and Ron did the second.  I was nervous about leading the final pitch because Boysie had been avalanched in the chimney about 6 years ago and his account made it sound all gnarly and hard.  It wasn’t, and today there was ice in all the right places.  I managed the tiny cornice without too much floundering this time but with only around one metre of rope to spare…  This seems to happen to me too often so I may treat myself to some new 60m twins.

The descent was the hardest part of today, gusts of 8o to 125 mph made it difficult to walk .  All in all though, I had another great day!  Thanks Ron.

http://www.talisman-activities.co.uk/blog/2009/03/wet-ice-and-gusty-winds.html