Knowing I had an 7 hour drive home ahead of me to get home, we made an early start to our day on Buachaille Etive Mor. With a short walk in from the road, this is a great place to gain altitude and get in the snow quickly. At lower levels the snow was well consolidated, through freeze thaw, and it was surprising how soon crampons were necessary.

We were also rather surprised when we came across a group of 3 Ptarmigans that seemed to be completely unfazed by our presence, even though we were so close.

The long climb up the back wall of Coire na Tulaich was rewarded at the top by breaking into glorious sunshine and stunning views in all directions. We then set about our task for the day, which was to mess about in a few gullies looking at layers in the snowpack.

Having found a gully that, to be perfectly honest, looked to me as if it should avalanche, we decided to go down it!  Attaching ourselves to the rope (and the rope to the mountain), we started our cautious descent before stopping to dig a few snow pits on the way down to see how the snowpack changed at lower levels. Looking down into the coire, we could see a total of about 20 climbers kitting up, who must have thought we were a pair of nutters! However, it was a valuable exercise, and one which I’m sure will be repeated.