After some time away from the hills, a few weeks ago,
I decided to take a wee trip to the highlands to go winter hillwalking.
The plan was to go to
Culra for the night, riding in by mountain bike, climbing some hills, spending the night and then climbing more hills the next day.
Originally, I planned to go on my own but a chap at work, Brendan, got wind of my plans and accepted an open invitation to come along. He's from New Zealand (along with many others from
my work) and I trusted that he knew what he was doing (he did).
The trouble is, since making my plans, I've had to watch on as the weather and conditions for the last couple of weekends have been great - clear skies and lots of snow. Of course, that wouldn't last. In hindsight, I should have moderated my ideas given the weather forecast was for low cloud and poor visibility, which always means trouble in winter.
I was up at 5am on Sunday morning, into Edinburgh to pick up Brendan and we arrived at Dalwhinnie as the sun came up (sorta) at 8am. The snow was down to the road (good) but clouds cloaked all the hills (not so good). We shouldered our (reasonably) heavy packs and began the 10 mile ride to Culra along the forest track by Loch Ericht. As the road started to rise for the 200m climb out of the glen, there was snow on the surface but it was quite ridable.
Eventually we turned off the main track towards Culra. There should be amazing views of big mountains like Ben Alder at this point but everything was white - the cloud level barely rising above 700m. The snow was softening, which meant that much of the last couple of miles to the bothy had to be walked since there wasn't enough traction to ride.
An hour and forty five minutes saw us to our intermediate destination, which was empty. We settled in, dumped our overnight gear - sleeping bags, food, cooking equipment. I made a quick brew and we set off into the clag for our first day's walk.
The plan was to go up Lancet Edge onto Sgor Iutharn, traverse over to Geal-charn and then take a view on where to go after that - east to Carn Dearg, or west towards Beinn Eibhinn. To get to Lancet Edge, you need to follow a path for a couple of kilometres and then strike northwards over rough, steep ground onto the ridge. To do that, you need to know where exactly to leave the the path. Because of the lack of visibility, finding the ridge was difficult and took us far longer than anticipated, particularly as the snow was soft and shin-deep, which slowed us down somewhat.
Eventually, we found the ridge, which should have had magnificent views (according to the Munro guide) over to Alder. Not a bit of it. The snow started to harden as the ridge steepened and we fetched axes and crampons out of our packs. The climb itself was fairly enjoyable, even under loose snow, and we topped out after an hour or so.
At this point, the wisdom of our route choice came into doubt. Visibility on the top was, to all intents and purposes, zero. We couldn't tell where the ground ended and the sky began, which obviously made navigation difficult. I had doubts about being able to navigate the 2km to the summit of Geal-charn, across a relatively featureless summit plateau (not Cairngorm flat but difficult). So, we decided to traverse the ring of crags on our right and try to find the ridge descending north-west towards Carn Dearg. I had the map and compass in my hand for the next 90 minutes as we headed towards our descent. When we arrived at the point where the ridge should have been, we had no definitive idea if we were in the correct location and since the ridge descends steeply and visibility was so poor, we were unable to locate it with any degree of certainty. At one point, my mapwork became so uncertain, I couldn't even be sure where we were. At about 3pm, with an hour or so of light left, we made the prudent decision to retrace our steps in the snow and head back down Lancet Edge.
Even with a GPS, I'm not certain I'd have been confident of finding the descent, so bad was the visibility. In retrospect, it probably wasn't a great idea to head towards these mountains when the clouds were so low but you live and learn.
It took us 2 hours back to the hut and we were in darkness when we arrived. Food, tea and an hour or two of chat and reading (
The Villain for me, the biography of Don Whillans), we were both "asleep" by 8. The hut is very comfortable, all things considered, but my tiny sleeping mat does not make for a great sleep. Poor Brendan had no mat at all.
The forecast for Monday was even worse than it was for Sunday. Low cloud would be combined with high winds on the tops, so I wasn't convinced it was worth attempting to go up onto the Alder plateau where navigation in those conditions would be very difficult. At 4:30am, I woke up and took a peek outside where I was presented with a beautiful view of the surrounding mountains, clear of cloud. How typical. This put my doubts about climbing in the morning into doubt themselves. However, when we woke at 7:30, Ben Alder and its neighbours were covered in thick white cloud and a stiff breeze was blowing. We took the view that it wasn't worth battering ourselves up the hill just to get lost again, so we called it a day and headed back to the car.
The snow on the ground was a bit harder, so we managed to ride all the way back out without walking, which was very enjoyable, even with heavy packs.
So, not a particularly successful trip, given our initial plans. However, we climbed a nice ridge line, got ourselves off the hill without too much trouble, enjoyed the ride in and out and the solitude of the hut. I think I'll return there in summer and attempt to run round the hills, hopefully, in better visibility.
For the rest of the winter, I'm going to make a list of routes that I'd like to do and keep an idea on the forecast and go out when it looks decent, rather than trying to plan weeks in advance. That might be difficult given family life but hopefully not too ambitious. Oh, and I think I might have to get a GPS and improve my languishing navigation skills.
