We've had a great spell of weather in the Outdoor Capital of the UK. Easterly winds have brought dry and sunny conditions. The rock has been dry and the trails sweet on the bike. I've been getting back on the bike and coaching coaching skills with degree students at West Highland College over the last few days as well as running TCL Assessment Courses. Today was dry to start but the first rain for a while came in just after lunch time. Ian, Kev, Carl and I managed to get up Curved Ridge on dry rock before the rain came in.

There is no snow left on the route but there is plenty in Easy Gully and on the slope at the top of the ridge. This avoidable though and you can get in behind Crowberry Tower without touching the snow. We used a rope to get down the steep snow at the top of Coire na Tulloch before enjoying the glissade into the coire. We did not carry on down the gully though thinking the snow will be undercut by the stream. We walked out on the path and looked at the remains of the avalanche debris at the foot of the coire. Most of this has melted away, much quicker than I thought it would. Cold, sunny and dry weather coming up at the weekend.

Mike and I went pinnacle climbing today. With SE winds and some showers forecast we went for B Buttress on the west face of Aonach Dubh in Glen Coe. Pinnacle Face (V.Diff) gave us some great fun climbing with steep chimneys at the bottom and a wacky move to get out of the chimney. Some more open climbing then got us to a couple of pinnacles, the second of which is actually an enormous block sat across a gap with a through route underneath (Cyclops IV,5).

You can climb this buttress further right to make it about grade Difficult but still going past the pinnacles. As always this face never fails to impress with its steep walls, deep gullies and great atmosphere. There are lots of routes to explore. There is also a lot of snow left in the gullies and we were glad to have ice axes with us. Number Two Gully has 5m deep patches of snow where the usual descent route goes. It will take a while for these to melt away although the streams are quite full with snow melt.

Yesterday, Andy took Liam and Rob up Tower Ridge which was in superb spring condition. Well frozen snow and dry rock with blue sky and warm sunshine on the summit. Tower Ridge was a popular choice with several teams enjoying the great conditions. Comb Gully is still in reasonable shape as is Green Gully but both have cornices above them as well. Point Five Gully has a big line across it below the chimney.

Today, Andy was out again for us this time with Sharlin. They were doing some coaching on Ledge Route on their way to the summit of Ben Nevis. It was another stunning spring day but with less frost than yesterday. Even though it is clear over night at the moment it is not cooling down so much and the snow is softening and melting away in the sunshine. The slide down the Red Burn is still great though!