Or are incidents just in the news because of what happened a few weeks ago in Glencoe?

Cairngorms incident

We’re off to Torridon at the end of the month…

Thanks

Avalanche risk will always be dependent upon previous and current weather conditions, as well the physical aspects of the terrain you are in. I’d recommend you check the following before heading out:

Scottish Avalanche Information Service

Mountain Weather Information Service

Also worth doing a bit of reading around the subject and maybe getting out on the hill with someone who knows their stuff.

The current spate of things in the press may well be as you say due to the number of fatalities this year, or it may well be because there have been heavy thaws after periods of snowfall. Some parts of the popular climbing corries in the Cairngorms are also quite prone to regular avalanches.

Or are more people walking/climbing in affected areas?

brooess,

There are lots of avalanches every year in Scotland. Most don’t involve people.

There are many factors which affect the likelihood of avalanches including:

– weather right now: wind speed & dir, snowfall, temp
– weather over past few day/weeks: wind speed & dir, snowfall, temp
– aspect and inclination of the slope

There are many factors which affect the likelihood of people being involved:

– the weather (atrocious weather = less people out); mild weather = more people out.
– the road conditions: if people can get to the hills their will be more of them,
– the availability of equipment = it no longer needs to be several hours of shivering to go winter walking
– some weeks of the year will be busier than others, e.g. ‘mid term’
– access to transport? whether through clubs or personal resources more people, especially young people, have access to reliable comfortable transport to make trips to the ‘highlands’
– winter climbing is increasing in popularity

Looking at individual years in isolation is therefore probably misleading. You’ll see the general trend here: http://www.mountainrescuescotland.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Avalanche-Study-1980-2009.pdf you will note we are in ‘peak season’ right now in general, and that the recent weather conditions probably play well into the hands of the avalanche gods, both by bringing lots of snow but also relatively mild temperatures which suit avalanches and encourage people to go out.

I think the risk is no more than an average year. I do think that the incidents there have been seem accidents, not through major fault. I do not think mis-adventure is anything new, and should never be a reason not to head for hills and wild places.
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Sadly the Scottish hills (and any other hills) have their fair share of proper accidents – and their fair share of ill-informed or just nobbish behaviour.
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We have always had people (me included) who headed off into the hills and learned by having some adventures and near misses.
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I do think there is an increase in people out in the hills over the last decade or so.
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As with so many outdoor sports, I also think shiny kit, ability to share routes and adventures online in glorious 1080hd and beautiful pictures, is encouraging many to take on routes, hills and rivers that in years gone by may have had an ‘aura’ of respect or awe about them.
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Things like GPS are reducing the need to learn skills through experience and ‘apprenticing’ under more experienced or smaller adventures.I see so many threads on here asking ‘where are the red trails in X hills…’. They seem unaware of the navigation by map and common sense is a key element of riding in some places; and that if you have learned to navigate in such places, you will also have faced your fair share of awful weather, crap kit, dead-ends not marked, lack of food and water and all the other things that happen as part of a learning curve.
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Mobile phones mean that people are more likely to call for help earlier – I was taught to crawl off the hill with my teeth if needed, and I would have been carrying enough kit to spend a night out if it all went horribly wrong…Now you just dial.
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In paddling, I see that modern boats and kit has moved up the bar on what you can paddle and hope down – this just means it is easier to be closer to the ‘oh sh*t!’ line and things going horribly wrong.
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So summarising: no it is not more risky than other years, but we do have more people in the hills, and the gap between an ‘adventure’ and ‘mis-adventure’ has narrowed, with an increasing number at the new end of many sports less equipped in skills and knowledge to help themselves when it goes wrong. Just re-read my first statement though – the recent issues do seem genuine accidents.

the chalamain gap is an interesting feature: it’s basically a narrow notch that was cut into the ridgeline by the runoff from a massive lake formed by a glacier damning the river that ran/runs through the lairig ghru…or at least, that’s the way i understand it. it’s rough with boulders and it’s very narrow over its length, with extremely steeps sides which basically runs diagonally northeast/southwest. the southerly winds may have really loaded the northern facing side.

regardless, it’s been a winter heavy with tragedy and best wishes go out to all involved.

We had an avalanche a few hundred metres from Edinburgh bypass that bad winter a couple of years back, so my local situation can only be described as better.

Go back 10-15 years, when we had decent Scottish winters, and there were so many deaths each year that banning / licensing / compulsory insurance for winter walkers and climbers was regularly touted on the news. So no, I’d say we’ve just had a run of mild winters until very recently.

I’d also second the comment about ignorance, it’s very rare to see people dig test pits, to understand the snow stability, before wandering over large expanses of snow, or ski off piste.

meh, as we discuss this there are two MR callouts for Killin and Lomond MRT’s…

Have to say that recently I have run into far too many horribly underprepared folk on the hill. They strike me as the “man against the elements” type of chap, and despite all the fancy gear they do have, they seem to lack the one they should have – common sense. I am lucky enough to be able to pick my days in the hill, which unfortunately the “I’m here I may as well crack on” brigade are not able to do. What they can do is at least respect the fact that MR teams are volunteers, and support the local hostelrys and not the local hospitals!

I agree with a lot of what Matt and poly write above. The ongoing (?) situation isn’t one that I’d comment on now as media reaction is usually pretty hastily worked up, especially in early stages.

However we were speaking about this earlier at work. I don’t have the sense that there’s anything particularly unusual going on this winter, and I don’t think people are any less prepared than they used to be. In recent years there seem to be more people on the hills than I can ever remember though (greater number of well-prepared and ill-prepared then but also perhaps increased number of incidents, more avalanches being witnessed/ reported that would usually be missed..) plus the means for reporting/ recording avalanches is easier now than ever – all may make the number of avalanches appear to be increasing.

My sense is that this winter though number of days that most people are able to get out on the hill (ie weekends/ holidays) when wind, visibility and snow conditions have all been good hasn’t been particularly high. That might contribute to people going out in riskier conditions when they might otherwise wait for the next good day. That said, the avalanche accident in Glencoe seems one where many, many experienced people could equally have been caught out – just a very sad freak occurrence, the type of thing that happens in the mountains from time to time even with the best precautions. Most of the other fatalities that I’ve heard of have been navigation/ fall related, rather than avalanche victims. Though as with every winter, there are people caught in smaller slides/ releases that escape relatively unscathed.

Bottom line is that I’m hoping for the best for all involved today, whoever they are.

I don’t have the sense that there’s anything particularly unusual going on this winter

There have been some slightly unusual weather patterns this winter which have lead to extremely localised high avalanche risk.

For example there have been periods of extreme temperature fluctuation which can cause avalanches itself but has also lead to a layer of hard snow-ice which can provide a low friction sliding surface increasing the risk of avalanches later once fresh snow has fallen on this.

Also, much of the snow that has fallen has fallen with high winds which redeposit it as windslab which is prone to sudden failure. The winds have been highly variable often swinging through 180 degrees over the course of a day which leads to further movement of loose snow and makes it more difficult to predict where instabilities will occur.

I’ve also heard reports of depth hoar forming in the snow pack which is thought to be relatively uncommon in scotland and provides a weak layer that can cause avalanches.

So leaving human error out of the equation there are a number of factors that I think have contributed to the recent spate of avalanches.

What Matt said.

There are always avalanches when the conditions dictate. There are more people in the hills and not all are knowledgeable enough to be in certain situations. That said even the most competent can be caught out.

I reckon similar number of avalanches but more people around.

There will always be the “I’ve driven 300 miles to be here – I’m still going up there” attitude. Often misguided in my view. Of course it is a very tempting line to adopt.

Stay safe………..but have some adventure too!

I reckon similar number of avalanches but more people around.

That theory doesn’t really work. The number of naturally occuring avalanches may or may not be the same this year. To my knowledge though, all the ones that have killed and injured people this year were victim triggered. More people in the hills means more (human triggered) avalanches.

Don’t feel too sorry for Mountain Rescue, they love their job and it’s a real honour to be asked to join the team. I was chatting to a local guide in Glencoe many years back and he was soo chuffed when they asked him to join, it was like he’d won an Oscar!

flaps – Agreed. My two colleagues really get a lot of pleasure and satisfaction from a good job done, helping people and being out there in all sorts of wild conditions with some exciting kit.
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That all falls flat on it’s face when they get called out to some plum who could of helped themselves or avoided the issues in the first place or, most frustrating of all, someone who really could not care less or thinks it is funny.

Another bad outcome in this incident.

I heard the radio report and as soon as they said it was in the Chalamain Gap I thought it was going to be bad as it’s a popular area.

I’ve long since decided my skills aren’t up to proper winter hills so I restrict myself to the Pentlands when there is a lot of snow.

In sort answer to the op – no. Avalanches are frequent in the highlands in winter, and every year people will get caught in them.

Avalanches are frequent in the highlands in winter, and every year people will get caught in them.

People will trigger them is perhaps a more appropriate phrase than people will get caught in them and I think weather conditions have contributed to the apparent increase in avalanche incidents this year.

To the OP (if I’m not teaching my grandmother to suck eggs). Go to Torridon but pay particular attention to temperatures, snowfall, snow pack history and wind direction and choose your route accordingly. Without wishing to give you a false sense of security Torridon has had less snow fall than other regions and so has generally had a lower avalanche risk. This info comes with all the usual caveats!

Temps of 12c at the weekend for Ullapool. Snow conditions by the time the OP gets there may well be very different.

Cool. Thanks for all the advice. If it’s getting warmer up there this weekend then we’ll be particularly careful.
I’ve 30 winter munroes under my belt and have a naturally cautious approach. I know the basics of avalanche avoidance re slope angle and aspect/recent conditions and have walked away from a slabby descent on Beinn Eighe before but we’ll check the local conditions when we get up there and I have the Cicerone book on avalanche awareness which I’ll go through before we go this time…

A lot of folk see the highlands as being a low level environment, not proper hills and therefore the weather won’t ever be that bad. Will it? And as matt_outandabout said, there’s more of them – lot’s.

A few years ago two friends of mine one of whom is swiss headed out to walk the Lairig Ghru from Braemar heading north at Easter. They stopped up above Rothiemurchus for the night. It was a mild day when the set off. They woke in the middle of the night in the middle of a snow storm. They had no winter gear as they had thought I was being a bit dramatic when I suggested they go with more than just the light weather gear they were carrying.

To be honest I’ve met the attitude of “you don’t have proper mountains and you don’t know what bad weather is” too often from people who should know better (friends from Germany/Norway/Switzerland).

Keep an eye on MWIS and SAIS sites in the run up. They are good sites although there isn’t a specific avalanche report for Torridon. Blogs and UKC forum are good places to find out current conditions.
I would pay particular attention to prevailing wind speed and direction in the run up. Although we have not quite had the snowfall and very cold temperatures of the past few winters, there have been a good number of low pressure systems with strong winds blowing snow onto sheltered leeward slopes.
Good luck.

Glenmore Lodge used to (and probably still do) run one day Avalanche awareness courses, half day classroom on theory and half on the hill doing Rutschblock tests. I went on one about 20 years ago….

Lots of people run them, I can recommend a few really good people if you want…sods law when you do a course like that is the snow melts…
I did two weeks at uni on a winter skills course, even after that I was left feeling like I needed to know more…

We are still talking about a very small number of occurrences, at the statistical noise level. I don’t think we should be looking for a pattern or a trend or trying to draw any conclusions from these.

IMHO, Eric Langmuirs “Mountaincraft and Leadership” remains the go-to reference for anyone venturing into the Scottish Mountains – especially in winter.

I wonder if they were doing a bit of practise in the CG before trying one of the climbs. Ended badly anyway.
Thoughts with their families. I am off up to Killin tmw,not too keen now l see the MR were out today,weather looking less blowy tmw mind.

It will be fine – it is all running down the falls tonight, not sure how much sleep I will get with the noise – wave as you go past me house lad.

Thanks for that update Matt,leaving house now, 4.50am.. 🙄

I don’t think we should be looking for a pattern or a trend or trying to draw any conclusions from these.

You’re right to suggest that these incidents may not be part of a larger trend. However, we can and should draw LOTS of conclusions from them. There is something to be learned from the detail of every avalanche. Things that might well save lives. Perhaps your own.

The SAIS website lets you report an avalanche and fill in all the details so they can refine their prediction models.

Glenmore Lodge used to (and probably still do) run one day Avalanche awareness courses, half day classroom on theory and half on the hill doing Rutschblock tests

The third person to die as a result of this avalanche was on a winter skills course with Glenmore Lodge, surely the leaders of such a course would have the experience to avoid a potential avalanche area with a group of winter skills students?

BlindMelon – no such thing as 0% risk in the mountains, sadly.

Very true. It seems that the RAF group triggered the avalanche and the Glenmore group got caught up in it, tragic

The SAIS website lets you report an avalanche and fill in all the details so they can refine their prediction models.

This is well worth doing, easy to boot. I’ve got a few logged now and recommend anyone else do the same.