WINTER ON BRAERIACH

Rachel nearing the summit and our one and only 5 minute sunny spell!

A few cm's of fresh snow

Sgurr an Lochan Uaine peeping out the cloud

The summit and the only other two folk we saw all day

Overnight rain had put down quite a few cm's of snow above 1000m in The Cairngorms. Return client Rachel is out with me for 3 days of Munro bagging. Today we headed up onto Braeriach from Glen More. Our plan was to go onto Sgurr an Lochan Uaine via the wonderful and remote Angel's Ridge, an easy scramble. Unfortunately the excellent weather forecast of good sunny spells and mostly dry didn't happen, instead we had constant showers by mid morning. So we changed plan and headed up onto just Braeriach. I say 'just' but this fine mountain isn't a short day by any means and with snow lying at 1000m it made it slightly longer today. It really felt like winter had arrived today, but it is only early October! We had a very brief 5 minutes of blue skies and glimpses of sun but this was replaced by cloud and poor visibility near the summit. We made a nice circuit of it and came down via the lovely Loch Einich and walked out through Glen Einich. Always good to finish in a different location if you have a friendly driver or just use the excellent bus service up to Coire Cas. We're hoping for the promised sun tomorrow.