Today there are blizzards and it will put down at least a meter of fresh perhaps more in cushions on the headwalls so on top of the graupel it could be very dangerous indeed. I might post up todays pit profile alhtough it will come from another area as I can’t see the forecaster wanting to go into the area he was in yesterday as its a bowl and has a terrain trap at the bottom. The SAIS area forecasts are a really good service but the public forget it’s for an area, not an aspect or slope. The historic avalanche data on the SAIS site is very useful http://www.sais.gov.uk/avalanche_map.asp It can be viewed on the main page or via the above link and each red dot has a little bit of info on each incident and it can be zoomed in to 1:50,000 map scale. One ski area off piste descent (Easy Gully) has 1i8 logged avalanches. It certainly seems like a world class service we get from the SAIS. Regarding that hard layer, my own take is that the melt freeze crust with graupel on top will stay deep and the shears today will come from the small rounded wind blown snow with the new stuff on top. If we get a rise in temperature the steeper slopes might purge off down to this lower layer or there might be a monster slide if theres enough weight on it.The big risk in Scotland is walking groups like ducks in a line exiting headwalls on normal ascent routes. 7 or 9 folk in line just overloads it. I have been at several of these where groups of 6 to 9 have been taken and 3 or 4 have been buried and not survived.
