I find myself between jobs at the minute and with a bit of time on my hands had made plans in February to get some hills done during this period.
Toezi and I sat in some heavy M8 traffic on a Thursday afternoon then headed north up to Aviemore. As we got closer, there was quite a bit of snow around, even at 250-300m, and the Cairngorms on our right were looking fantastic.
As we sat in the Cairngorm Hotel bar looking at the snow showers out the window, we knew we were in for an exciting day.
We were up at 0700, showered and breakfasted in the bunkhouse room and were on the road to the Ski Centre car park at 0800. We arrived, put on all our winter gear and left the car park at 0830, walking into a pristine and white Cairngorms, with only the tracks of animals breaking the sheet of white.
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| Leaving the car park |
We soon realised that this snow was going to be a problem - it was dry and powdery in the morning, so your feet sank right in, and unclear on what lies beneath, each step was a gamble. We stuck to what seemed to be the path and headed off up to the 1083 point between Lurchers and Cairn Lochan.
The views started to open up and it was looking fantastic, and not too cold either.
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| Sparkles in the snow |
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| Northern Corries |
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| Other side of the Lairig Ghru |
We pressed on, albeit at a very slow pace of 2km/h - falling waist deep sometimes into snow drifts makes for poor progress. Then we eventually got our first views of MacDui.
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| MacDui |
Not long after, we could hear the roar of jet engines, and sure enough, we were buzzed by a couple of F-15's, seemingly from RAF Lakenheath. One even flew below us into the Lairig Ghru.
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| F-15 |
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| F-15 |
From there it was a very slow trudge, sapping our energy with every step. However, we made it to the summit of Ben MacDui at 1225, just as someone else beat us to it from the Linn of Dee side.
We had some food, had a chat with the fine chap and he was willing to take a snap for us.
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| Toezi and I on the summit |
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| Summit waypoint marker |
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| Views south |
From the summit, we followed our trails back across the plateau and then headed NE, contouring round the side of Cairn Lochan to reach Stob Coire an t-Sneachda at 1440. It seemed to take forever, and the weather had started to close in too, with heavy blizzards and a biting northerly wind. So it was goggles on, head down and just keep moving.
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| Jonny Goggles |
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| Northern Corries from above |
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| Top of Stob Coire an t-Sneachda |
The next step was a slope that just drained our energy even more, and that was the last climb of the day. We made it to the summit of Cairn Gorm at 1537 and the weather station was looking especially wintry.
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| Weather station |
We followed the fence posts back down to Ptarmigan station and then had a bite to eat. From there, it was a fairly straightforward path back down to the car park, where we arrived exhausted at 1650.
We went out for dinner and few beers in Aviemore and decided to abandon plans for Bynack More the next day. It can wait until our skelpit faces have calmed down.
Here's the Relive:
Distance: 18.32km
Time: 8h 15m
Ascent: 969m
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