TARMACHAN MOUNTAINEERING: SUMMER SNOW

Thursday 7 July 2022

SUMMER SNOW

Snow tunnel

A beautiful, clear skies morning in the Cairngorms. Nice to see a sparkling day for a change. With Schools Summer holidays in full swing the hills will no doubt be busy. One of the many qualities of the Cairngorms is the option very easily and very quickly to get away from the masses, get off paths and main 'highways' and get out to the wilder, more scenic, more beautiful areas in these mountains.

A quiet trail.into Sneachda

Beautiful clarity

Fiacaill Buttress

I set out for some wildlife photography, loaded up with my usual 3kg of camera & lenses. I quickly left the crowds behind who all seemed to be heading towards Coire an Lochain whilst I took the trail into Coire an t-sneachda. I saw no one else until late afternoon. I took my usual pathless route onto the Fiacaill Coire Sneachda ridge.

A deserted ridge

Wonderful, easy scrambling

What's not to like?

Brilliant

I must have scrambled up the Fiacaill Coire Sneachda ridge over 200 times now, Summer and Winter. I never, ever tire of this. How could you? Easy scrambling in Summer. Only downside is it's too short! I was on the Cairngorm plateau by late morning.

I'd spotted a Ring Ouzel and a juvenile snow bunting in the coire. Sadly no Ptarmigan. I decided to head across the plateau and see if the snow tunnels had formed in the Loch A'an basin.

Loch A'an looking beautiful

Small snow tunnels

January blessed us with only a small amount of snow fall. To get good snow tunnels forming we needed a good, even average dump of snow and stormy conditions. Sadly not this winter. Even so it was worth scrambling down the wonderful slabs to have a nosey. If you are tiny you'll get inside the two tunnels. For me I had to stoop. In an average year one usually walks into these marvels of nature without even ducking your head.