free to be able to rate and comment on reports (as well as access 1:25000 mapping).
And the moral of the story? Well, I guess there are several. Here's one for starters: Don't mess with the White Mounth in the White Stuff......especially in a whiteout! There are others - more of them later!
No route or distance/ascent stats for this one as I couldn't honestly vouch for them being anywhere near accurate!
This was a rather inglorious start to my 2012 Campaign and it has put a severe dent in my already seemingly overambitious target of reaching the half-way point in the Munros by the end of the school summer holidays in mid-August. It could also easily have put an even bigger dent in my confidence in my abilities on the hills in winter conditions. As it is, although slightly shaken for a short period of time on Friday afternoon, still distinctly miffed at having set out with the aim of doing a 3 Munro route and having to settle for only reaching the summit of one of them and also still a little perplexed as to what actually happened and how/when things went pear-shaped up there, my overriding feeling looking back is one of satisfaction that I reacted and managed the situation as I did and ultimately got through it thanks to actually thinking about and knowing what I was doing and not just as a result of pure chance.
Ailsa had been packed off to my mum and dad for the day so Debbie could have a day of peace and quiet at home without Tweedles Dee and Dum and I could have a day in the hills. Sounds reasonable to me! At the end of the day I headed straight from the hills to Auchterarder to collect my daughter. My wife had clearly appraised my mum of my Munro plans for the day, because the conversation with my mum went something like this:
"So, did you get your three Munros done?"
"Nah"
"Well, did you get one done?"
"Yeah, but that was all"
"What happened to the other two?"
"I got a bit lost!"
"You did what?"
"I got lost - there was a complete whiteout!"
"See, that's what I really don't like about you going out in the hills, especially at this time of year"
"Mum, everybody gets lost sometimes, especially in a whiteout. It's what you do next that matters!"
"Hmmmm, whatever. Just promise me you won't go out in the hills again for a l ong time!"
"I'm doing an overnighter in the Cairngorms with Kev and Darren in two weeks time!"
End of conversation.......
Anyway, back to the actual events of the day.
I should never have been out today had things gone according to plan earlier in the week. We were, as mentioned in my last TR, renting a cottage near Tain over New Year and I had the green light to go and do the Graham Beinn Tharsuinn near Alness on the 2nd. I was all packed before going to bed on New Year's evening but overnight Debbie came down with a 24 hour vomitting bug and spent most of the following day in bed. So that was as close as I got to Tharsuinn. This was the second time in six months (in fact only the second time ever) that I had been staying for a week in this neck of the woods, and the second time I had seen Graham plans go awry. Back in August I had set out to do Beinn Dorain, the Graham to the north west of Helmsdale, but dark forces and circumstances had prevailed and the Graham never happened. What is it with me and northern Grahams?????
But I had been allowed out today as a consolation - question was where to go! For a while it looked like my mate Robin might join me, but he folded on the Thursday so it was just me. That opened up more options and after reviewing the weather forecast, I settled on the Glenshee/Cairnwell area.
Even as I left the house at 7.15am on Friday morning I was in two minds, and the note I had scribbled and left on the kitchen table detailing my whereabouts reflected this. It stated that my probable route would be three of the Munros on the western White Mounth, namely Carn an Tuirc, Tom Buidhe and Carn of Claise. However, an alternative route combining the Graham Meal na Letter (a.k.a. Duchray Hill) with the Corbett Monamenach was also mentioned, with a note that I would text/call if this turned out to be the chosen route.
I weaved my way along the familiar A93 road through Blairgowrie and then on up through Bridge of Cally towards the Cairnwell Pass. When I got to the turn off for Cray I had to make the decision. Which route was it to be? I stayed on the 93. Now, there is no way of knowing how a day on Meal na Letter and Monamenach would have turned out, but it is probably fair to say that this was a bad decision.
Several stops were made thereafter for the purposes of induldging in a spot of landscape photography before I reached my destination. Driving through the ski-centre area at the top of the Pass and down the other side was a bit tricky and parking at the logical spot by the old military road bridge for access onto the Carn an Tuirc path was simply not happening in the snowy conditions, so I had to continue a short distance further north to the large parking area on the other side of the road just before the road bridge.
- Mount Blair at first light
- Beautiful skies over Mount Blair
- Ben Gulabin
- Approaching the Cairnwell Pass
- Sron na Gaoithe from the parking area
By 9 o'clock I was off along the track onto the Monega Pass, the old public Right of Way to Glen Isla, where things were a tad mushy underfoot.
- Onto the Monega Pass track
As I approached the old bridge (and the shiny new-fangled arty bridge beyond that), two walkers came in from the road and took to the Carn an Tuirc path ahead of me. Once onto the main path, there was less in the way of mush but the going was no less difficult in the deep, soft, powdery snow. Thankfully the two figures ahead of me had broken the trail and I was able to use their footprints to assist my progress.
- Carn an Tuirc
- The Cairnwell
- Sun hits The Cairnwell and Carn Aosda
- Hard going!
It was slow, laborious progress although as the ascent proper began, I seemed to be closing the gap on the pair ahead of me, especaially once they stopped to put their crampons on.
- Starting the real ascent - two figures visible ahead
- Don't know if this shows how deep it was!
As they set off again with a cheery wave back in my direction, I could only have been about 20 yards or so behind them. At that point, having been contemplating crampons for some time since things had become a bit more consolidated, I also stopped and put them on. By the time I got going again (having extended my stop time to allow for the consumption of some hot juice and a couple of chocolate biscuits), there was no sign of the other two - I would see them briefly in the distance across the plateau from the summit, in the general direction of Tom Buidhe, but that was it. I would not see them or another human soul until I was back at the car shortly after 4 o'clock.
- Towards the Cairngorms
- Glen Callater with the Corbetts of Creag nan Gabhar and Morrone to the left
- Cairn of Claise from the summit of Carn an Tuirc
At the summit, I paused a while. It was fairly calm and so I took advantage to take more pictures, have more hot juice and biscuits as well as a pork pie and one of my three rolls. I also removed my crampons and considered my options.
- Me on Carn an Tuirc - isn't hindsight a wonderful thing?
Although the cloud had progressively rolled in throughout the morning from the west, I could clearly see Carn of Claise to the south across the col and also a rather featureless looking lump to the south east that could only be Ton Buidhe. A compass bearing confirmed this to be the case and I decided to stick with Plan A and head for the Yellow Hill.
As I have said, at this point I am not altogether sure what went wrong, or precisely where things started to go wrong. But this brings me to the second moral of this story - it is inadvisable to try to navigate a route around three hills which feature around the corners and edges of two separate OS sheets. Our printer at home is not working so I was carrying the two maps in question and trying to unfurl them and use them against the stiffening wind did not prove an easy task. I knew I should have nipped into work on the Thursday to use the printer there!
- Is that pear I can smell? Looking back towards the Cairnwell en route for goodness only knows where!
Anyway, it all closed in, and apart from one brief, fleeting glimpse of Tom Buidhe away in the distance, I could see next to nothing. Things started to float in front of my eyes, even although there had only been the tiniest dash of Bacardi in that flask of hot juice! Distance becomes almost impossible to estimate in these conditions but eventually I got to thinking that things weren't right. Hey, I know Tom Buidhe is not the most distinguished of Munros, but even still.....
Just prior to this I had taken a short piece of video footage in which I narrated that I believed I was closing in on the summit of Tom Buidhe and that I would take some more footage from the summit once I got there. Let's just say that this piece of footage is unlikely to be used any time soon by VisitScotland as a piece of tourism-related publicity. If I can figure out how, I may include it in this report later.
Well, needless to say, I never did reach the summit of Tom Buidhe ..... or anything else for the remainder of the day. Shortly thereafter I took a compass bearing that gave me a cold shiver down my spine. From then, the game had changed completely. Tom Buidhe was no longer important. The car (or any point on the A93 road even) was all that was important. I consider myself to be a fairly experienced and competent navigator, even in fairly murky conditions such as these, but I must admit to feeling a momentary sense of panic. I looked at the map, aware that I couldn't accurately pinpoint my location, although I felt sure I knew roughly where I was. But that compass bearing had me heading completely the wrong way. How could that be? My mind went back to Boxing Day 2008 on A' Bhuideneach Bheag in similar conditions and the rising sense of fear I had felt then. I thought about Carn Bhac with CurlyWurly almost a year ago to the day, again in similar conditions, and how easy we had both realised it is to walk around in circles or even unwittingly retrace your steps in a whiteout. In short, your senses get shot to pieces. Thank goodness the dog wasn't with me - that's the last thing I'd have needed. I checked my mobile - I had reception at least, although I wasn't calling anybody at this stage. Let's think about this calmly. I visualised my route since Carn an Tuirc. It wasn't difficult - just think white! But there had been a few features that I could hang on to. I ran back through it in reverse and decided that I reckoned I could retrace my steps, although any ideas about physically locating my footsteps would have been foolish. I knew that even allowing for a certain "margin of error" in my location, the car was generally in a north westerly direction.
I thought that had I had a bothy bag, or a tent (which I actually had considered carrying!), I would probably manage to spend the night out there, but then would that really help? I'd have to call home and I could just imagine how my suggesting I sit the night out in a bothy bag or tent would have gone down. I'd have been instructed to get straight on the blower to Mountain Rescue and to hell with my pride!
Apart from a few moments of doubt, and one scary looking giant hanging cornice above me to my left that had me convinced I was about to be avalanched, it worked. As I walked and worked things through, I realised that the bearing I took couldn't have been right. It's a relatively new compass, one of those fancy-dan models with the mirror casing. Can't remember what the name of it is. Anyway, there are some things about it I like and others I am less keen on, and one of the things I have found is that it is remarkably easy to misread your direction of travel by 180 degrees. Of course, when it had happened before, I'd immediately realised and it hadn't been an issue, but maybe in the sensory deprivation of a whiteout I had panicked and been unable to think quite that clearly. Whatever, the damage was done now and I was on my way out.
Gradually I became more and more confident that I could locate myself accurately on the map and of course then it all fell into place. Back at the col below Carn an Tuirc I thought momentarily about heading up onto Carn of Claise, even although visibility was nil. Fortunately however, the devil on my left shoulder shouting "Go on my son, you know you want to" was drowned out by the angel on my right shoulder shouting "Don't be a plonker - keep walking towards the car!"
There was no way I was going back over Carn an Tuirc and so I went down through the Cul Riabhach - as painful and tortuous a descent as any I have undertaken in my life. By the time I caught sight of the A93 road, my upper thighs felt like they had been cluster-bombed and falling waist deep through the snow into the mush below had lost all sense of fun.
Over 7 hous after leaving the car, I was back, knackered, chastened and grateful. For a solitary Munro tick, it wasn't half hard fought and won. And the third and final moral of the story? Well, I hope this doesn't sound too naff, but along with all the other invaluable pieces of advice that can be found on this web site about safety on the hills in winter conditions, I'd say that if and when you find yourself in this sort of situation, don't panic. It might not seem possible in the heat of the moment, but stay calm, take your time, think things through and formulate a plan.
Now, here's to the Cairngorms in a couple of weeks time!
