When we started off in pouring rain from Nanyuki, we felt still very uncertain as to what snow conditions to expect. Since our trip fell in the beginning of July, a usually dry month, I think it is fair to conclude that skiing on the Lewis Glacier may we quite good during perhaps eight months of the year. It certainly will always be fair on a sunny day. The sun melts the hard surface layer thus creating 'firn', a well-known and much liked snow formation in the Alps. It has the one disadvantage that it freezes again very quickly and then becomes extremely fast.
Crevasses do present a certain problem.
Prussiks may be one answer, and the other would be to first practice emergency brakings on the hut slope. Although they yearned down on us all over the glacier on the way up, they seem to vanish miraculously as soon as one's skis point downwards. Another aspect of skiing on the mountain is, of course, the altitude. Unfortunately, we did not have sufficient time to wait for acclimatisation. The carrying up was therefore a rather slow process - at least as far as I was concerned.