Life in Scotland: 10.12.12 Black Spout Gully

I got some new MSR Lightning Ascent snowshoes and wanted to try them out. Dan and I went up into Lochnagar with the goal being an early season ascent of Black Spout Gully. The SAIS Avalanche forcast was LOW everywhere, so we were confident. There was not too much soft snow with the freeze/thaw cycles having been in effect for a few days. But the snowshoes were awesome for getting in there nonetheless. We saw footsteps from another walker that, in places, were breaking through and looking knee-deep. Also, when we got near the gully and switched to crampons, we realized what a dream walking in snowshoes had been. We post-holed our way up to the base of the gully where it became much firmer. The wind had scoured most of the gully and in places it was difficult to kick in a step. The only difficult step came about 10 meters below the cornice. There was a 3 meter high snowdrift that had frozen hard. It was STEEP and difficult to kick in steps. Once over that, the left hand side of the cornice was naturally well-rounded and there was no need to break through. All in all, it was a great day up!