Johnny Hall's Travels and Travails

After the last couple of years of being distracted by running, triathlon and babies, I'm rebooting my interest in the outdoors. Living in Cardrona, I'm more or less surrounded by greenery but I don't really take advantage of it, beyond riding at Glentress (deeply cosseted though it is) and running in the forest. So, I'm now planning some outdoor adventures over the winter. Last time I did any winter walking in Scotland, was a couple of years ago. I reckon I still know what I'm doing though. So, on December the 14th (I've booked time off with Becky and with work), I'm going up to Dalwhinnie, where I'll mountain bike in, with a relatively light pack, to Culra, then climb the munros to the north and west of there (Carn Dearg, Geal Charn, Aonach Beag and Beinn Eibhinn), stay the night in the bothy, before climbing Ben Alder and Beinn Bheoil and then cycling back out again. I'm sorting out my gear now - I think I'm more or less covered, though since it's winter, I'll need the backup of crampons and axe, but I don't want to carry in my winter boots and crampons - they weigh far too much, so I'm investing in some Kahtoola steel crampons which will fit on lighter weight footwear. Hopefully, the weather will be reasonable but I won't be counting on it. I'm excited to be going out into the hills with my current level of fitness. I've relied on my underlying fitness in the hills over the years but the last couple of years of marathons and Ironman have moved my fitness onto a new level, so it'll be interesting to see how that shows up when I'm confronted with knee-deep snow and a driving headwind. After that, I'll have to come up with something to do in January. Maybe get hold of a super-light tent and camp on a summit somewhere?