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Me and JB
This was a last minute walk that was arranged when JB phoned me on friday morning to say he needed to get out on the hills as he has just started his new business and needed a break so quickly phoned gammy leg and arranged these 2 for today.
James picked me up at 05:45 just after i received a text from gammy to say he had a rough night and wouldn't make it today
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The forecast looked promising today and it didnt disappoint as we arrived at the car park just in time for the sun coming up and gave us nice blue skies
- looking good
We got chatting to some other walkers at the car park who had asked where we were going so we said Chno Dearg and Stob Coire Sgriodain and they said so are we so that was great and we started to follow them from the car park......For about 50 yards when we realised they were heading for Stob Coire Easain
good start
We quickly about turned and picked up the track by the cottages and sheep pens and out on to the pathless hillside, Which would normally be very boggy but not today as the ground was frozen solid.
This was a bit of a slog especially for James as he hadn't been out since early November and the Christmas party food was taking its toll
The ascent was still pretty quick and was made more enjoyable thanks to the clear skies and stunning scenery all around us
It didnt take long to get to the snow line where the walking improved and this gave me and james the chance to get the ice axe's out and have another practice at climbing up steep slopes etc with the axe.
After this we made our way up until about 20 mins to the 1st summit where now the compacted snow and ice was making hard walking so Im glad to say that after my crampons being a shiny ornament for the last year and a half and seeing no more action than the stairs in the house it was time to get them on
Having the crampons on was a bit strange at first but it didn't take long to get used to them and find them very useful on steeper slopes and it wasnt long before we made our 1st summit of the day stob coire sgroidain.
The views here were just as good as planned with stunning views all around although there was some low cloud moving in from the west which would catch up with us later
- gusty buff :)
After a long stay at the summit we headed down and had some lunch out the wind which wasn't that strong just cold.
We kept the crampons on as there was still a lot of hard packed snow and it wasnt long before we were approaching the 2nd summit of the day, still watching the cloud rolling in very slowy behind us and expecting to be in the clag when we got there but instead we were rewarded with a cloud inversion that made our day
Although this wasnt the inversion we had hoped for it was still good to see the cloud rolling in and be above it for a change
We spent a fair bit of time again at the summit soaking up the views before making the quick drop off back down to meet the path that leads back to fersit, catching some more good views behind us and across to creag meagaidh
This was a very enjoyable day and even though we were about an hour and a half slower than planned we didn't care as it was good to sit and appreciate such stunning scenery
This was also a good 1st munro outing after the festive period where a few pounds have been gained by both of us so instead of stopping at our usual moulin inn for a pint and a steak and chips we decided against it as we had probably burnt off a few calories today...... so we went to McDonalds in Perth
Thanks for reading
Alan