Ben Nevis's north face where two of the victims died

The men who died yesterday in Scottish avalanches have been named.

William Wilkinson, 34, and Rupert Rosedale, 37, were buried in the slab avalanche on Ben Nevis’s Number Three Gully. They were in a party of three climbers at the time.

Mr Rosedale was head of outdoor activities at Marlborough College, Wiltshire, and Mr Williamson taught at Culloden Academy and lived in Inverness.

Chris Astill, 54, of Tideswell, Derbyshire, initially survived a separate avalanche on Liathach in Torridon, but died after being airlifted from the site, where he was tackling the route with another man.

Mr Rosedale’s father Barney Rosedale was team doctor on the 1972 Everest expedition. He said his son had been climbing since he was 13 and had ‘died doing exactly what he loved doing’.

sportscotland Avalanche Information Service forecasts for today indicate high avalanche risk on some slope aspects in the Creag Meagaidh area, and the northern and southern Cairngorms. In other areas, slopes have a considerable risk of avalanche.

The SAIS blog for the northern Cairngorms warns of unstable conditions with newly drifted windslab lying on an already unstable cold snowpack. Snow in some of the northern corries is waist deep.