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Back to early 2009.... Following my ascent of
Morrone on the Hogmanay holiday I’d decided hill walking was the pursuit for me. Especially when there is snow on the peaks. So I’d already booked myself onto a winter skills course at Glenmore Lodge for March and come early February there had been another substantial dump of snow. So on the Saturday went into Tiso’s in Aberdeen and got myself a decent sized rucksack, some proper boots and my first ever pair of crampons.
The main roads were all clear and I turned up at the small car park below the main Glenshee one around 9:30. Sky had dawned clear, hardly any wind and temperature was -6°C. The plan was to follow the path shown on the map to the hut North of Carn an Tuirc, then up said mountain, onto the nearby (less than 2km) Cairn of Claisse, then back on a path towards Glas Maol but turning of down the Sron na Gaoithe path, then down from said top to the newish footbridge over the Cairnwell Burn. A modest 13km. Little did I know.
Initially there were someone’s tracks to follow, but they soon turned to ski tracks and I soon realized why. I now know its called post holing. I also found out it isn’t a very speedy or easy way to travel. Most of the time the snow was calf deep but there were drifts in there. After a couple of k and an hour latter I found myself waist deep in one and decided that I would turn back if I encountered another. However while I struggled out of this drift a group of 5 peeps (and a German Sheppard) from Dundee caught up with me. Not mentioning that I was a complete novice I asked if it was OK if I tagged along with them, to which they seemed fairly happy to.
Anyway we now took a route further up the hillside - I eventually cottoned on that this was to avoid the drifts. We also took a lot more breaks which I was happy about. I’d put way too many layers on and was sweating buckets in my expensive but non-breathable jacket.
By taking a more around about route we didn’t encounter any more deep drifts. Once we were up to around 800m the views where astonishing. Apart from some forest around Braemar the entire landscape was white and the visibility was breath-taking.
The Cairngorms from the North flack of Carn an Tuirc
Full size (0.5MB) image over
here - well worth a visit if I say so myself
Icy way down, A93 just visible
Distant skiers
Glenshee ski area at the top of this one
Got to the summit around 2:30 – 4.5km had taken 4.5 hours! There were a fair few people at the summit: walkers who had taken a more direct approach but mainly cross-country skiers. The Dundeers had also intended to go on to Cairn of Claisse but we all agree that was out of the question. We did take a slightly more direct route back down and soon encountered sheets of ice. Boy was I glad I had my crampons. A couple of the Dundeers only had ice axes but on this not hugely steep hillside crampons was definitely the way to go.
Once down in the glen the walk out become a weary trudge, but at least we had our own tracks to follow back. And according to the car the temperature was still -6°C. So, my first winter Munro – exhilarating and sobering at the same time. Lots learnt and the bug was now even more deeply buried.
And my first ever Munro? Ben Nevis in 1975!
