Ben Nevis glistened in the sunshine today after the rain cleared this morning. The snow is bright white, the sun is shining and the rock is dry. The great ridges on Ben Nevis are fantastic fun at the moment with plenty of useful snow and clean dry rock just where you want it. Tower Ridge, NE Buttress, Observatory Ridge and Ledge Route are all a mix of snow and rock and sunshine just now! There are a few nice mid-grade ice lines to enjoy as well. With frosty nights and dry air the snow is quite firm but the ice is not well attached to the rocks underneath so you need to be a bit careful. Zero Gully, Hadrian's Wall Direct and Point Five Gully look complete but they were broken last week. I'm not sure that they will be nice to climb at the moment - I think the ice is cruddy and soft but I could be wrong. Indicator Wall and Smith's Route are complete but both have cornices above them that are quite frightening.

General snow cover starts above 700m or so and there are very many creep lines and sag cracks in the snow slopes and behind cornice lines. These are very deep in some places and a few have streams running underneath. Take care not to fall in!

The trails are dry too for mountain biking which is what I was doing today. I was coaching the coaches of the first year students on the Adventure Tourism Management degree. We were at Nevis Range and we got hooked up in the official opening of the new Green and Blue trails. The Witches Trails are now family friendly - the Blue trail is particularly good for any rider of intermediate standard to advanced. It's a very well built trail.

Yesterday was another nice day with slightly lower temperatures and a bit of fresh snow to make it feel a bit more wintry. The snow was down to 600m or so and with a gusty westerly wind there were some heavy falls of spindrift for Dan, Neil and me. We climbed The White Line having checked out the exit the day before from Tower Ridge. The cornices sit a bit further right over The Upper Cascades so the lines of The Gutter, The White Line and HaleBopp Groove are all free from cornice problems.

The White Line gives six long pitches of great climbing in an impressive situation for grade III climbing. Of course some of the ice is not well attached to the cliff and some care is required but over all it was a great climb. It warmed up during the day and the mist cleared a little to reveal a few of the crags. Comb Gully Buttress is mostly cornice free and iced up and Comb Gully itself was climbed recently. The Comb Left Flank looks good too.

Today is warmer and wet with strong winds. Cornices will be falling off again and the thaw continuing to melt away the snow and ice. The forecast is for windy but slightly cooler conditions over the next few days so there will be more winter climbing days on offer for the keen mid-grade climber (such as me!).

Very nice, dry Spring conditions on Tower Ridge today for Neil, Dan and me. It was just a little colder and there was a slight dusting of snow on the tops last night. The snow was still a bit soft though up to 1300m. Dan, Neil and I had a great day on Ledge Route in January with snow down to low levels. Today it felt very different but just as much fun.

Rain at the weekend melted a good bit more ice and made a few big sections of cornice fall off. Orion Direct and Hadrian's Wall are no longer complete. In fact the only complete big classics are Point Five Gully, Indicator Wall and Smith's Route. Each of these has a big cornice at the top though which means you really don't want to climb them even if there is a cold snap. There were people out climbing Central Gully Right Hand and Glover's Chimney which both looked good.