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This was day 2 and was meant to be an easy walk
and if the forecast had done what it said then it would have been an easy stroll. But when I woke at Fettercairn and saw the snow and how deep it was and it was still falling a decision had to be made
. It had to be either the 80 mile drive back home or go and have a look at the road conditions and decide from there. Well as it happens the roads had been gritted, but had the Glen Esk road ?? Mmm well, as it happens it had not been done but there had been a good lot of traffic on it which made things a bit easier for driving on
So I got to Millden Lodge with no mishaps till I tried to be conciderate and park in such a way that anyone else could get in and use the limited space. And Disaster I was too close to the edge of the hard standing and my back wheel went off the chips and when I tried to sort that the front wheel went off also
. Bugger, I thought, what now? All I was doing was spinnng the wheels deeper and deeper so I got kitted up for the walk and just then another car came in and saved the day with a push i got out and parked a wee bit further in from the edge and all was good (many thanks whoever you were)
Sorry I never got your name. So of we went on our way, with snow on again and the wind picking up this looked like a bit more than the stroll that the books said that it should be
. Navagation was fairly straight forward once I got on to the correct track of which there are lots of. It turned out to be a bit of a slog against the wind and frequent showers but I plugged on and eventually got to the end of my track after loads of photos. Next, I thought, simple just follow the fence line to the summit
well it should have been simple. The snow just got deeper end deeper with some of the drifts chest deep and more on occasions, and by jings wee Fernie was having a hard time of it
. So wee plodded on with eventual crawling on the snow (to spread the weight) we got to the electric fence
there was no way that fence was going to shock anyone with the amount of snow on it
. Fern posed for a quick summit photo and it was time to get out of here as it was blowin a baltic hoolie. We marched on following the fence line south to try and get out of the wind and cloud, following a fence you would think fairly easy with around a foot of snow it was easy till, I stepped off a hag and ended up in around 6ft of snow
bloody hell that was a fright and a half, what had happened was the fence line had used deer posts in the haggs which I never thought of so you think 4 foot fence then whoosh you are up to yer neck in it as it drops in to the haggs. So I climbed up the fence wires to get out gave myself a wee dust down had a chuckle to myself
and got out of the haggs following the little bits of grassa and heather that often show on the higher ground under the snow. So we got down a bit and the cloud cleared as the sun started set and the views were superb with the shallow winter light and the pink/orange glow that the sun put on the snow
. We got on to the hill road fairly quickly and all I had to do was the walk back to Millden Lodge with loads of photos of sun and snow and also some of poor wee Fern who was having a real hard time of it with the snow hanging from her like bawbles
.An hour or so later that was us back at the car and the drive back down the road. What a day
