Snow Watch 2013

Boerkie wrote: @Jonwells & MtTiska

Would you venture an educated guess as to the coming weekends (5,6,7 July) escarpment weather?

By the looks of it we should have been there this weekend.

Always difficult to give an accurate forecast so far in advance, but for the time being there seems to be a chance of snow on Friday night, rather windy on Saturday morning, but looks ok after that.

3am wake-up call at Sentinel Car Park....a clear night when we arrived the evening before had turned to snow. Instead of our planned early departure we slept in. At 6am it was still snowing. When we set off just after 7 it hadn't stopped. We knew a front was going to be passing through, but I dont think many anticipated the amount of snow coming. I think this is the first time Ive started a hike in the Berg while its still snowing. The snow was a few centimetres thick, but wonderfully soft and fluffy. It actually did not suite us at all, since we had planned to be climbing for three days. We hoped it would melt quickly and were happy when the sun did shine through briefly. It closed in again when we reached the top, and even snowed some more. It stayed densely misty for most of the day. We could not climb that day. Had minimal warm layers along and no tent - just enough to to keep warm inside sleeping bags and bivvies. Luckily we found a small patch of snow free dirt to lie on under an overhang which we knew about, overlooking Mt Amery. The next day didn't go any better as we attempted Inner Tower. Even getting down to the neck between the Tower and the escarpment was an alpine adventure of slippery snow gullies and narrow ledges which we slid, crawled and abseiled down. Getting onto the Tower was treacherous - we were punching holes into the snow with our hands to pull on the grass and ice cold rock underneath - this on steep, unprotected slopes. More on this to follow. Though we did get some climbing in later elsewhere, the beauty of the snow in the Berg is not always worth the inconveniences it causes.

The day of the snowfall:










Sunrise the following day from our little rock shelter:

Afriski have reported snow, by the look of their webcams its a very light dusting so far

Okay our trip up to the top of the Tugela falls was a little less dramatic Intrepids' trip, but we did experience a snow shower on Friday afternoon 5 June on the way back, from below the chain ladders to the top of the zig zags.

Looks like some snow is hitting the Central Berg this weekend again Got another climbing trip lined up right there and then...grumble grumble...

The weather report is looking slightly better than yesterday. What do our weather guru's think about this weekend? Looks like a low pressure system is around?