Camping and ski touring

Meanwhile....

After meeting the guys in the Bridge of Lochay Hotel, I drove eastwards on moonlit snowy roads past Loch Tay and over to Blairgowrie where I'd arranged to meet Nobby in his Mazda Bongo campervan - the plan was to head up to Glenshee, camp in the carpark and be first on the slopes in the morning... Al & Lindsay were coming up too but they saw sense and got a room at the Spittal of Glenshee hotel. It was midnight when we reached Glenshee - the final pull up the pass was like driving in winter Norway, hard compacted snow on the road and white out conditions (so that's what snow poles are for at the side of the road)

Nobby slept in the van - but I prefer a tent so we pitched the tent in the lee of Glenshee ski centre buildings - by this time it was a whiteout with 60mph winds so I improvised and weighted the tent down with heavy road cones. The Big Agnes Seedhouse tent is a lightweight backpacking tent which we use on the summer wild camping weekends - it doesnt have snow vallances on the flysheet and the inner is mostly constructed of mozzy mesh - this meant that the wind constantly drove a small, powdery and increasingly expanding drift in - but I was really warm in my two down sleeping bags and two sleeping mats - and slept well until woken up by the piste bashers and snow ploughs preparing the car park at first light.

The wind put all piste skiing plans on hold and the now shut snow gate on the Glenshee road prevented Al & Lindsay from meeting up, or from actually getting anywhere in a hurry at all - so Nobby and I headed northwards down to Braemar village where the wind had certainly abated - walking up the northern slopes of Morvern, the 800m lump which overlooks the village (skinned up the first part but found that the heather was catching the skis too much so we found that it was more efficient to carry the skis for most of the ascent - meeting two walkers (who conveniently broke trail) and one descending cross country skier all day. After three hours of snow bashing to get up, the descent was a mere twenty minutes or so by snowed-in landrover track before a final couple of miles flat x-c skiing, surrounded by snow covered hills back to the village. Ace!

February Winter skills with Gary

The 2nd Winter Skills course of the year - this time we didn't have to wait for the snow, though at lower levels there was still considerably less than the foot or so which had kept the commuters at bay down south all week. Conditions at Killin were pretty wild on the Saturday, with a strong wind blowing the snow but Sunday was one of those legendary blue sky winter days which get talked about in years to come.

Guide/Instructor - Gary
Customers - Gordon, Dave, Tim

Walking Up Lowther Hill this time

Set out down to Lowther on Saturday to actually ski the hill in daylight - however when I got out of the van, as well as being bitterly cold, it was pretty obvious that the wind had blasted a lot of the snow away which had lain the week before - the few remaining patches, in the gullies and slightly more sheltered hollows, looked barely skiable. I debated in my head, whilst listening to the first half of Stoke vs Man City, the merits of taking the skis with me, just to have a go at the largest gully, just down from the summit - but just before Stoke scored, I turned off the radio, donned normal walking boots and headed up the rock solid Southern Upland Way.

The view from the summit is a wide one - Tinto to the North, the Moffat Hills, South-East and a highland-looking glen immediately South. I expected to see over to Arran in the West but the frozen lump of East Mt.Lowther and the setting winter Sun stole the view. The wind on Lowther's summit was truly fierce, so I sheltered in the lee of the golf-ball radar station before walking, half surfing the wind down to the lower transmitting tower and the narrow grassy ridge over to Green Lowther - this is where the wind was at its strongest - hood-up, goggles on, this was winter walking at it's finest!

Wanlockhead has Scotland's highest pub (Wanlockhead Inn), so when I got back down to the village (rows of small white cottages with smoky chimneys, windswept, empty streets, a shut lead mining museum and SYHA hostel and a bored looking dog chained to a wall), I thought I'd pay it a visit, managing enough shrapnel for half a McEwans 60 - the beer was nice but the tartan carpet was giving me irrational panic attacks and the sudden desire to leave!