Stob Choire Claurigh
27th December 2025
A cunning plan to get up early and see the a magnificent sunrise from Stob Choire Claurigh was dashed by a thick layer of hill fog forming over the hills in that area. At times it looked like it was going to clear with areas of blue sky visible above. It never did clear. Further West Ben Nevis basked under clear skies and unbroken wintry sunshine. I suspect the cloud over Stob Choire Claurigh would have looked very photogenic from Aonach Mor or Ben Nevis, but I am afraid you are going to have to settled for the less photogenic view from the inside. However, the lack of view did not mean there were not some interesting things to be seen, you just had to look at a smaller scale.
The snowpack has not changed over the past few days. It is still patchy in distribution, and what does exist is hard, icy and stable. Some areas of water ice are starting to form on damp hillsides in the continuing cold conditions. With the weather forecast to stay relatively settled little change in mountain conditions are expected over the next few day.
This was the view, not quite what had been hoped for.
Higher up it showed signs of clearing with areas of blue sky visible, but never got much better than this.
Heading down. Looking sunny on the other side of the Glen.
Back down in the Glen, a few small patches of cloud over Aonach Mor and Aonach Beag. On Ben Nevis it seems to have been sunny and clear all day.
Stob Choire Claurigh (on the right) still in the cloud when I got down.
The most interesting snow and ice seen today was at down in the glens. Here flowers of surface hoar crystals have grown from various bit of debris sitting on an old plinth of concrete. Surface hoar forms in cold settled conditions and is a frozen version of dew. It can form on the ground, on trees of of most concern avalanche wise on surface of the snowpack. When buried by subsequent snowfalls can form a weak layer within a snowpack. In colder calmer climates many avalanches will slide on a layer of buried surface hoar layers. In colder winters in this country such as the winter of 2009/10 there where some larger avalanches ran on buried surface hoar layer.
Hair ice. These very delicate hair of ice are much less common than surface hoar. Each hair is about 0.02mm in diameter, and it forms on the surface of dead wood from broadleaf trees (in this case a beach tree) with a specific type of fungi being the catalyst for it’s formation.
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ben
27th December 2025 4:13 pm
The hair ice looks spectacular!
lochaberadmin
28th December 2025 1:33 pm
Yeah, it made up for the lack of views higher up the hill.