by Les Deakin » Wed Feb 21, 2018 7:19 pm
Munros included on this walk: Cairn Gorm
Date walked: 18/02/2018
Time taken: 4.5 hours
Distance: 9 km
Ascent: 800m
Register or Login free to be able to rate and comment on reports (as well as access 1:25000 mapping).
I believe I first did this mountain in the summer of 1973 with my then girlfriend Viv. We had hitch-hiked up from London with our camping gear and camped near Morlich. I have been on the summit a few times since then. As I have started collecting Munros again and am up here for the week arriving Saturday, we decided on an easy start. I was accompanied by my niece and her other half who got the 'spiky bits' bug fairly recently.
It was a pleasant morning, cold enough for fairly good snow conditions but with little wind. We decide to go up Fiacall ridge (Coire Cas) as conditions looked easy. There were already some walkers and ski mountaineers moving easily upwards. I had not planned the whole route as I usually do. My familiarity with the routes to and from the summit caused a little laziness.
We got to the top without incident and Angela asked if we could go a different way down. I needed to avoid the skiers and the car was in the top car park so my plan was to go north from the summit, stay right of Red Gully and go down to the bottom car park.
The only minor difficulty of the day was an 'old chestnut'. When do I put on crampons? When do I take them off? If I had a pound for every time I got one of these two questions wrong I would be a rich man. It is obviously about staying safe but is also about comfort and looking after your crampons!
We put them on at the bottom of the steep bit of the ridge. Kicking steps is easy if snow conditions are favourable but putting on crampons on a steep slope is not. This was not a difficult decision. Later, as we wandered down towards the bottom car park, we watched the skiers enjoying excellent snow conditions in Red Gully.
The snow was getting thinner and patchy and Angela has lightweight alloy crampons. We discussed the merits of taking them off. She had been told not to walk on rock too much... (a book on lightweight v safety could be written). My final statement was that she would almost certainly need them at some point as we crossed the snow patches. A few minutes later I was walking below her in her fall line across a couple of patches which were a bit icy. I still had crampons on. Mine are heavy, steel, very rounded (except front points) and would prevent both of us sliding...
I left the others to their own devices as we negotiated the path down to the car park. I had taken my crampons off. Crossing the car park, which was icy, I slipped and landed heavily on my left knee... A Homer moment and another pound?