Winter was well and truly back in force today. The freezing level has dropped to around 400m and the snowpack is now bullet hard. In addition to that, today we had some seriously gusty winds, giving everyone a comprehensive taste of wild winter weather.
Today the winter hill-walking course headed around to Aonach Mor. Time for some revision on the crampon skills they had been introduced to on day one, before we skirted around the flanks of Aonach an Nid in search of some deeper snow.
After a quick introduction to the art of emergency snow-shelters we found some steeper ice forming over a couple of rocky outcrops to get everyone used to slightly steeper terrain before half of the group zig-zagged up the steep snow slopes towards the plateau of Aonach Mor.
The only slight downer? By the time we were back at the top station of the Gondola, they had decided to close it due to the strong winds. So it was a leisurely walk back down the hill to the base station!
