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I had an idyllic plan to spend Christmas Eve basking in the Winter sun, having some summit moments to relish and thankful for having my 2Gb memory card for all those glorious vistas. Well, it didn't quite work out that way. Myself, LeithySuburbs, Malky C, DaveH and Gavin99 were the unusual suspects and as we gathered at Tyndrum this morning in the dreich, we were able to quickly dispel the idea of adding on Beinn na Sroine to our intended horseshoe from Invergaunan. Perhaps the weather gods had decided to show us that they would dictate the day's play. Our walk up past the white cottage and on up to ascent on to Beinn Bhreac Liath started off well enough and we were making good progress. We could see the snow in the distance up over on to Beinn Ulaidh and we felt the horseshoe would be a nice day if not damp day out. At about 650m, things began to change and a Westerly wind started to buffet our progress. By 667m (the neighbour of the beast), that wind had intensified to the point that we were all donning gloves and hats in anticipation of what was to come - a 30 minute summit repose with a Christmas Eve snowball fight?? Eh, nae quite. Indeed, once on to the broad and relatively flat ridge with about 2 km to go the small summit cairn, the walk descended into farce. The wind was gusting at about 60-70mph and leading from the front at this point, I was struggling to stay upright and advance South in any meaningful fashion of a biped. At times, the wind would suddenly lull meaning you would unexpectedly run forward about 5 yards and then it would blow a hooly, where I would be blown over and running to stay upright over towards the Eastern side of the hill. I had never before experienced the feeling of wind ripping the phlegm right out of my left sinus nor the inversion of my right eyelid as the wind battered into my fizzog. My face felt like it resembled a stuntman's knee and as I looked round, it seemed that we were all at various points running over towards Fort Bill, like demented lemmings - either that or becoming experts in Drunken Monkey. It was both laughable and daft and we had a G5 non-summit conference to see if we could go on. Malky was keen and so we said we'd have a another 5 minutes and see how it went. However, at 680m, when that redwood of human being was being pushed over by the wind like a rag doll, we decided it was time to retreat and forego further simian hill insobriety. I took a quick video to give an inkling of the wind and did not need to add sound effects. A quick descent and brew back in Tyndrum, we still enjoyed the masochistic element of being battered by the weather and would appreciate the peace and dryness and warmth of Christmas day.
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- The G5
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- Awesome snow vistas on a hill somewhere not here
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