Glas Maol, 19th January 2014
Just over a week since my last hike, Steg and I were off again, heading up the A9 towards Glenshee. I picked him up at 6:45am and we made good time in dry conditions. By the time we hit Blairgowrie, the rain had started and a few miles up the road, there were floods everywhere - saturated ground just wasn't holding water and the burns were overflowing.
Despite the forecasts, by the time we arrived at the car park just South of the Ski Centre, the conditions were pretty bad. High winds and rain battered the car, so we got ready inside. We started our walk at 9:15am and headed up the track towards the Meall Odhar cafe.
The plan was to climb Glas Maol and Creag Leacach, but as we ascended, we realised that the day was likely to be cut short.
Steg had forgotten his waterproof trousers and was starting to get pretty cold. By 11am, we realised we were in whiteout conditions and we were relying purely on map and compass. We were about 1km from the summit so we decided to go for it. The freezing snow lashed our faces whenever we raised our head up to look. The plateau was completely featureles, so it was head-down and navigate in a straight line for 400m at a time, counting steps, then stopping to take a bearing again.
We made the summit pretty accurately (I was impressed with my own skill actually) and we found the trig point almost completely submerged by snow and ice:
We were at the summit at 11:30am, decided we were only doing the one Munro, then we headed down, following our own footprints, then as they faded, we started taking bearings again.
We made it back to the Meall Odhar cafe and the clouds had started to rise a wee bit, but it was still as wet and windy as it had been all day. We spotted the Braemar MRT doing some avalanche training as well.
The car was a welcome sight at 12:30pm, so we got in, got the heating up and then headed for Bridge of Cally for a feed.
That's me up to 97 Munros complete.
Despite the forecasts, by the time we arrived at the car park just South of the Ski Centre, the conditions were pretty bad. High winds and rain battered the car, so we got ready inside. We started our walk at 9:15am and headed up the track towards the Meall Odhar cafe.
 |
| Meall Odhar Cafe (just to the right of the fence) |
The plan was to climb Glas Maol and Creag Leacach, but as we ascended, we realised that the day was likely to be cut short.
Steg had forgotten his waterproof trousers and was starting to get pretty cold. By 11am, we realised we were in whiteout conditions and we were relying purely on map and compass. We were about 1km from the summit so we decided to go for it. The freezing snow lashed our faces whenever we raised our head up to look. The plateau was completely featureles, so it was head-down and navigate in a straight line for 400m at a time, counting steps, then stopping to take a bearing again.
We made the summit pretty accurately (I was impressed with my own skill actually) and we found the trig point almost completely submerged by snow and ice:
 |
| The trig point, covered in ice |
 |
| Steg on the summit - note the snow build up on his rucksack - purely from blown snow |
We made it back to the Meall Odhar cafe and the clouds had started to rise a wee bit, but it was still as wet and windy as it had been all day. We spotted the Braemar MRT doing some avalanche training as well.
The car was a welcome sight at 12:30pm, so we got in, got the heating up and then headed for Bridge of Cally for a feed.
That's me up to 97 Munros complete.
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