This was to be my first new Munros of the year and I was really looking forward to getting out into some snow. The forecast was great, it looked like it was set up to be a great weekend and as I scraped the ice off the car on a clear, dark morning at 7am I was quite excited.
My regular winter walking buddy Steg was busy with other tasks so I ended up just heading off myself. I think I'm competent enough with navigation now that I can trust myself to get out of any pickles that might arise.
As I drove up the A9, I watched the temperature start to drop on my dashboard display, right down to -6˚C at one point. The dawn was a stunning display of colours and the landscape looked great with snow all over the place.
I got to layby 79 just before 9:30am, but by this point it had just gotten a bit cloudy and it was hard to see the hills. There were a few other folks around and arriving - more skiers than hillwalkers by the looks of things. So I set off on the track which leads you under the railway and into Coire Dhomain.
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| The Sow of Atholl on the left and Sgairneach Mhor on the right. |
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| Icicles in the tunnel under the railway line. |
As I headed up the glen I could start to see how cold it had been recently, there was a lot of ice and snow in the Allt Coire Dhomhain
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| Ice in the river |
There was a fair bit of snow around, but I was on a pretty decent track so I was moving at a good pace at this stage.
As I was heading up the glen I saw a lot of wee traps on logs, and I'm not really sure what they are intended to catch. Anyone have any ideas?
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| Traps for sure - but for what? |
At one point, I had to cross the burn and someone has built a nice wee bridge for me!
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| Bridge on the far right here. Looking towards Sgairneach Mhor on the right |
Once you're over the bridge, the path is a bit less well defined, so I decided to navigate to the high point between the Sow of Atholl and Sgairneach Mhor. I knew I'd arrive at a tributary first, and that plan worked out quite well. However, the snow was getting deep and it's heather underfoot on these hills so going was a bit slow. I decided to get the walking poles out and this proved to be a good decision - there's a lot more stability if you're stepping into snow and you don't know the depth.
There were some lovely mountain hares around as well, in their white coats.
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| Mountain Hare |
I got to the tributary as planned and I saw two other walking parties attempting to cross the wee burn, but they were losing height and it looked steeper on the other side. So rather than follow on (I think the second party just followed the first), I made my way up the hill to the high point as planned. I ended up catching everyone else up, which was nice.
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| View back to Drumochter |
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| The other parties, just before I caught up with them! |
I headed for the summit of Sgairneach Mhor and stopped for a few minutes to chat with some other folks, but it started to get cold very quickly and I wanted to get moving again. I was on the summit at 11:45am.
Here's the rime ice on the summit:
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| Rime Ice on the trig point. |
The weather closed in and it was pretty white in every direction, but it wasn't too windy.
There was a couple ahead of me and they were navigating as well - I knew this because they were walking on the same bearing as me.
I headed for the kind of flat area between the two hills, making sure to not lose any more height than was necessary, and to not hit the steep sides of Beinn Udlamain - I wanted to start at the bottom of the ridge.
Here's the couple deciding what route to take:
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| Route planning |
The ridge of Beinn Udlamain is marked by fence posts, which were completely covered in rime ice, which actually helped to make them more visible.
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| More rime ice |
I made it to the summit for a summit selfie at 1:15pm
The descent was bit more difficult - I still had to follow the fence posts, but then change tack a couple of times.
I made a slight mistake here - I headed for a burn which didn't look to hard to descend on the map, but the heathery slopes and snow made it difficult, I fell a couple of times, but came to no harm. I should have dropped along the long slow slope south of the burn. Lesson learned for next time.
I dropped into Coire Dhomhain again and wandered back out to the car. I made it there for 15:50 and then drove home to lots of snow in Glasgow!
That's my Munro count at 112 now.
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