Out hill walking in Scotland on Saturday - weather was unbelievable. Sunny, warm wind and quite dry underfoot. These photos were taken at over 3000 feet!!

When I first started going out onto the Scottish hills, you would expect almost total snow cover by late April and you could still experience really severe blizzards on the summits. The hills were basically snow covered all winter, from November to May. Anyone going out without full winter gear, including crampons and ice axes at this time of year would have been considered foolish.

Lovely pics there!

Nice! Where abouts in Scotland is that?

Just North of Newtonmore.

I climbed hellvellyn at the start of april and there wasn't any snow there.

I've played frisbee on Helvellyn

No snow when I went either. (July, LOL, no surprises there)

Are you sure it's Scotland?? I saw a nice pair-o-knees* on the first photo.





*Pyrenees

Very good!!! - Like I said, global warming!!

Lovely pics!

I go up the cairgorms at the beginning of April every year with Duke of Edinburgh Gold participants for thier training, the past few yeaers its been quite snowy, enough to build small snowmen but never enough to need campons and ice axes! We all manage with three season kit and don't freeze to death! But this year the weather was much warmer than usual, no fleeces needed!! We all got tans too! Off this weekend with a bronze lot up at Glen tanar and strathdon, about 60 of them I think and hoping for some fantastic weather!

I can remember doing Orion Face direct on Ben Nevis on the 12th April - several years ago now! The whole face was plastered with ice for 1500 feet and there was accumulated snow covering almost all land higher than about 2,800 feet. Back then April was very definately in the ice climbing season.

There used to be a distinct "snow line" in the Scottish highland that usually lasted from the end of October to the end of April. The main Cairngorm plateux would be covered in feet and feet of snow.

You just never see those sorts of accumulations now. It has had a drammatic effect on the big rivers, paricularly the spey, which were fed by melting snow up to the middle of summer. Water levels are incredibly low which makes life hard for the salmon!!

The water level in the Severn is very low at the moment - the sort of level we'd expect to see in August.

It has benefits (like your early-season hill walking) - this morning we took my 70 year old mother kayaking for the first time in her life. I thought I'd have to wait till late summer to see such low (and therefore warm) water. Though if it carries on like this there won't be any water by August.

Same here, we were fishing on Loch Tay last weekend - it was a good 3 or 4 feet below normal spring levels (and we caught no salmon!).

Oh I'm doing my Bronze Duke of Edinburgh expedition in June! We're going to the Borders (can't remember where) so it should be fun Wow, sixty?!? There's only 12 of us