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| Fabulous neve on Sgor Gaoithe |
Return clients Issi & John are put with me for two days of Winter mountain fun. The sunshine and clear skies from yesterday continued into this morning. The winds were back though, as usual. We decided on Sgor Gaoithe. They are working their way through climbing all the Munros so we combined some winter essential skills whilst 'bagging' Peak of the Wind. Very apt today as it was a windy start even at low levels.
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| Shelter and fabulous snow |
Ww came out of the treeline and were greater with a quite vicious SE wind. I have climbed Sgor Gaoithe over 100 times, many occasions in winter, and I don't recall battling through such a strong wind at 400-500m on this mountain.
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| Superb neve |
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| Blue skies and wind above |
There was a huge amount of snow in the Allt Chronin Abhainn. This area looked like it was sheltered from the high winds so we made our way off the path and into this fabulous shallow corrie. It was indeed very sheltered and some wonderful neve for the crampons.
It was wonderful cramponing up the long snow slope that eventually comes out onto Sgor Gaoithe's plateau. Surprisingly the winds were lighter than 500m down below! With no wind at all on the summit. Unfortunately the cloud had drifted in near the top and robbed us of the magnificent view you get from this Munro.
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| Nearing the summit in cloud |
It was a good moment to recap on some essential navigation techniques as we made our way back down the hill. The cloud was now down to about 700m.
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| Near white out on the decent |
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| Windy clouds |
It was still blowy down below the snowline. A grand day out and glowing faces.
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Issi & John with antique axes |
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