I've been a bit busy over the last week and haven't been doing my duties to winter climbing conditions justice. Last Monday I climbed Botterills Slab, a route I had wanted to climb for a long time it was certainly worth the wait and lived up to my expectations. Great thin ice climbing.
Mid week last week saw new snow fall on the old neve, initially this snow must have been quite cold and then it became slightly warmer and wetter,a reasonable accumulation of the wetter snow created some classic slab avalanche conditions.
Saturday was very warm with the freezing level shooting above the tops, this consolidated the snow pack and a heavy frost on Saturday night has given great snow ice in the classic gullies, Moss Ghyll is great and the Great End gullies are in fantastic condition. The last two days I have been working on my sun tan climbing at Great End.