The Fort William Mountain Festival was a brilliant event last week that took up quite a bit of my time. Normal blogging service will resume now that it is all done and dusted for another year.

Yesterday was very wet and warmer than we've had it so far this winter. Consequently some big avalanches released. There were a couple out of the Castle Coire, Number Five Gully and Observatory Gully both released too. It did cool down a little today but not as much as was hoped for. With more fresh snow falling today and soft cornices forming quickly there were a few more avalanches during the day. A big slide down from the Cascade area was observed and another on the Little Brenva Face caught some climbers on the face resulting in some injuries. The snow is not settled yet!

I was very happy to be on a ridge climb today. Tower Ridge made a great climb today for Kieran, Ger and Jim with Louisa and me. The ridge is almost unrecognisable due to the depth of snow on it and I belayed in very different places to those I've used before. Most of it is quite simple but the Great Tower is as tricky as ever.

The old snow was frozen on the summit with extra wind chill but the freezing level seemed to be up at about 1300m. The Red Burn is a very easy way down at the moment but even here there are some large blocks of snow that fell off the cornice running up the south edge of the gully. The crossing of the Red Burn on the Pony Track is completely banked out and looks quite intimidating for walkers expecting to follow a trail. It's going to be another breezy week with yet more snow fall.

No change in the weather pattern or climbing conditions over the last few days apart from the snow line has descended to sea level! This is the first time this winter that we've had snow down to sea level and we've barely had a frost. However, we've not seen as much snow on the hills for very many years.

Rintje and I had an aborted attempt on North Buttress on Buachaille Etive Mor on Monday - I forgot my crampons so we had to go all the way back down again with no climbing. Yesterday Rintje and Gareth climbed 999 on the side of Gearr Aonach which was fun. Andy and Michael waded in and swam up North Buttress on Buachaille Etive Mor.

Today Rintje and I went up Ben Nevis. We walked from North Face car park as there is too much snow on the track to drive up in my van. The wind was more from the SE already so we were careful in how we got to the foot of Gutless on Douglas Boulder. The climb was great, the ice nice and the snow quite firm after leaving the chimney. We made the abseil from Douglas Boulder in quite violent gusts of wind and got back down to find Rintje's rucksack had been blown away.

If you find an orange North Face rucksack with only a couple of things in it please let me know. Unfortunately it is probably under quite a lot of snow already.

A brave team went up under Number Five Gully and climbed The Curtain. They said the ice was very nice on the second pitch. They also said they had been avalanched but this is not surprising in a High avalanche hazard!

On the last day of Kiernan's launch into the world of mixed climbing we went to Douglas Boulder to climb Jacknife and SW Ridge. Jacknife is a great pitch of V,6 climbing with a tricky last groove to the belay ledge. The digging required today made it all the more absorbing! Kiernan and I then swung leads to the top of the boulder before descending the East Gully of the gap.

SW Ridge was a popular choice today as well as Ledge Route. There was a team making a late start to NE Buttress, one on Moonlight Gully and a team on Carn Dearg Buttress (Centurion I think). It was cold, calm and very pleasant for climbing today and there is a layer of soft powder everywhere - the skiing will be magic!

On the way up we saw debris from an avalanche out of Observatory Gully that had turned at the foot of the gully and headed towards the CIC Hut. It only stopped when it go to within 50m of the hut! The big avalanches I've seen out of Observatory Gully have all gone straight towards the Allt a'Mhuilinn. To turn towards the hut and very nearly reach it is quite remarkable. Yet another big slide at about the same time as the great slab in the Cairngorms went.

It's been said before but this is an amazingly snowy winter and big avalanches have been occurring as a result. Eventually all this snow will turn to ice. In the meantime the best ice is on Carn Dearg Buttress where Gemini is getting fatter and The Shroud is fat.