Live winter conditions monitoring: Lake District and Eryri
Winter Monitoring Locations
The BMC have several winter monitoring systems set up around England and Wales bringing you live ground conditions from across Eryri (Snowdonia) and the Lake District so climbers can make the most informed decision before heading out for a winter climbing day.
Why monitor conditions?
The cold and wet conditions which make these chosen winter crags sought after venues for winter climbers also provide sanctuary for rare Arctic-alpine plants, with the inaccessible location preventing sheep grazing. The turf these plants live in is easily damaged by ice tools if not fully frozen; even a single ascent in marginal conditions could irreparably damage the plant or habitat. But in well-frozen conditions, the turf won’t be damaged by climbers – good news for plants and climbers too, given loss of turf can quickly change a route from steady to a desperate grovel. Better for the plants. Better for the climbers
How it works
Temperature probes have been placed at the crags and these take readings at hourly intervals and transmit to base stations which upload the data to the winter monitoring systems. The graphs for each location give four temperature readings – the current air temp and the temp of the turf at 5cm, 15cm and 30cm depths., available for both 600m asl and 800m asl. Its helpful to thing of the data as information for different scenarios; 5cm for crampons, 15cm for axe placement and 30cm so we can understand when the deeper ledge turf is going to be sufficiently frozen in place on those ledges. Climbers will need to use their judgment on how to interpret the data, keeping in mind the basic principles of safe and sustainable winter climbing.
We stress that this is not a definitive system – it will not give a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer to whether conditions are good for climbing. Small differences from the effect of weather on different areas of the crag may mean the measurement site shows frozen turf when the turf on the crag (or part of the crag) is not, or vice versa. Likewise, weather can affect similar crags even a small distance away differently. There are many variables which contribute to bringing routes into condition and the data below should simply be used as a guide for climbers to make their own, more informed decisions about likely on-crag conditions.
WATCH: Winter Climbing Ethics on BMC TV
Life-saving links
White Guides
The guides below contain vital information on which routes to avoid in marginal conditions with easy-to-understand colour topos and other useful information to aid planning for winter climbers.