Snow and ice on Ben Nevis
9th January 2026
It was a relatively settled day. With little change in the snowpack from yesterday I decided to head up the Ben to see what was happening there. At lower levels the path was quite iced up, and although not super slippery constant attention was required to stay upright. At mid levels the snowpack has a crust formed on the snowpack a few days ago when the freezing rose briefly to around 900 metres. This made for hard going. At higher levels the issue is just deep soft snow.
Tomorrow (Saturday) looks like being a reasonable day although with the wind starting to pick up. Sunday looking to be a wild day with strong winds, the freezing level rising above the summits and snow turning to rain at all levels. This is likely is created a period of instability on Sunday maybe into Monday depending on the exact timing to things.
Ice on the footpath. From the carpark to almost the CIC hut the path was mostly covered by a layer of hard snow and/or ice.
Carn Dearg Buttress. Some ice has formed around the base of Waterfall Gully, but little ice higher up (it was all on the footpath). Currently very little ice on the like of the Gemini ice smear or the Shroud. It has just been too dry (and that is not something that is often said about Lochaber). There has not been had any rain or proper thawing since before Christmas, and there is little water seeping out the crags to freeze and thus not much ice on Carn Dearg Buttress. On the other hand very pleasant not getting soaked when out forecasting.
The cliffs of Ben Nevis. Rimed up and white but overall little ice from what I could see. The exception is the CIC hut cascade of the left of the photo which is more of a cascade style ice route compared to the freeze thaw snow ice which Ben Nevis is well known for.
Looking up Observatory Gully.
The view into Coire na Ciste.
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