ENVIRONMENTALISTS have voiced concern after discovering that the snow in Garbh Choire Mor, on the slopes of Braeriach in the Cairngorms, has completely melted away for the second year in a row.
The monumental event has sparked worries about climate change, as it has never happened before.
Somewhere in that valley, there has almost always a been patch where it is almost always winter.
When the snow melted last year, the spot, known as the Sphinx, had been clinging on to the mountain side for 11 years. Even then that was only the sixth time since records began 300 years ago that there had been a thaw – the snow had previously melted in 1933, 1953, 1959, 1996, 2003 and 2006. But now with the snow melting two years in a row, walkers and researchers are concerned.
Iain Cameron, a snow patch enthusiast and researcher who seeks out and records snow that survives on Scotland’s highest mountains, said it was unprecedented.
He said: “Two things have happened this year which have never happened before: the snow on Braeriach has melted for two consecutive years, and it is not the last snow in Scotland to disappear.”
There are, he adds, still patches on Ben Nevis, but despite that, he still thinks that “this is a pretty big deal”.
Garbh Choire Mor is described as Scotland’s snowiest Corrie because of the amount of snow it can hold even through summer months.
Most years snow in the glen builds up to incredible depths, as much as 75ft, and because it’s so deep the summer sun never manages to melt it all. Cameron is hesitant to say exactly why he thinks this happened, due to the fact he is not a meteorologist or a climate scientist, he says.
“The climate is changing, you won’t get too many people dissenting from that. You can see the rate of the snow melt in Scotland looks like it’s accelerating.”
At the start of the last century it was presumed the snow in Garbh Choire Mor was permanent.
Back in 1933 when mountaineers first noticed that it had melted away they wrote to the Times, noting the momentous occasion, and saying they doubted this would happen again.
At 1296m (4252ft) Braeriach is the third-highest mountain in Scotland.
It is only just behind Ben Macdui, which stands at 1309m (4295 ft), and the tallest, Ben Nevis, at 1345m (4413 ft).
It is the highest point in the western massif of the Cairngorms, separated from the central section by the pass of the Lairig Ghru.
UKClimbing.com describes Garbh Choire Mor as “remote” and having an “Alpine feel”.
It also warns that it is a place to avoid in winter because of cornices – large overhanging ledges of snow that form above the Corrie.
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