Lochnagar and White Mounth were visited by Glyn Jones and myself on 21st August. Glyn advised that Cuidhe Crom went some time ago, and last year’s 2 big patches in the NE Coire disappeared 3-4 weeks ago. This year, the only visible snow there was in the lower part of Douglas-Gibson Gully with 2 patches, estimated at 1.5m and 1m length respectively plus 2 tiny fragments just below these, only discerned in the zoom photo (image 0290). On Adam’s 10-point scale, this amounts to 1 patch scoring “2” (i.e.“AW2”), and 3 x AW1. Of much more significance was the Coire an Daimh Mhoile patch. This has split into 3 (image "CDM" shows the 2 larger ones): west of burn 60m x 5 max. x 2 max. depth [AW 7]; east of burn 17m x 4 max. x 1.6m max. depth [AW 5], with a fragment 1.75m x 0.5 max width and negligible depth [AW 2]. What was especially interesting was what was happening there. The snow was hard, without the usual 3-5 cm soft surface, and the entire surface pockmarked with peat dust along all the tiny ridges. A warm wind was blowing up the gully, and vapour could sometimes be seen drifting from the upper end of the biggest patch, so perhaps this indicated sublimation direct from hard snow to vapour. Meanwhile the undersides were dripping continuously, creating the grey-white deposit beneath that is often seen on grass where a snowpatch has disappeared recently. One specific drip was leaving a coiled grey-white foam, shaped more like an animal dropping. No other snow was observed on the White Mounth, but over on Cairn Bannoch this year the Black Latch gully NW of the summit carried 4 patches (images 2904, 0326), the 2 largest estimated at 15m max. dimensions [AW 5], plus 2 smaller [AW 4 & 3]. Finally, the cloud lifted sufficiently to view the Coire of Loch nan Eun (image 2911), which had no snow, in contrast to its many patches in 2014. Total number of patches for 21 August 2015, including Cairn Bannoch, was therefore 11.
-- image 0290: D-G Gully zoom (photo by GJ).
-- 2901: Coire an Daimh Mhoile.
-- 2904: Cairn Bannoch.
-- 0326: Cairn Bannoch zoom (photo by GJ).
-- 2911: Coire of Loch nan Eun.
Interesting that although Cairn Bannoch’s NE aspect therefore had more snow in 2015 than last year, Lochnagar’s 2 largest northern coires had virtually none.
Edited 1 times. Last edit at 08.24hrs Sat 22 Aug 15 by Timberline.
Attachments:
P1050290 (800x600).jpg (338kB)
CDM 21aug2015 (692x526).jpg (242kB)
IMG_2904 (800x600).jpg (178kB)
P1050326 (800x600).jpg (298kB)
IMG_2911 (800x600).jpg (152kB)