A GUIDED WINTER WALK

 

Lovely snow for a walk

I've been getting quite a few late bookings for guided walking days recently. With such wonderful snow cover on the Cairngorms then why wouldn't you be excited to get out in the hills? Becky and Matt got in touch with me for a last minute guided walk somewhere in the area. They had originally booked to go skiing in Zermatt but with the current Covid travel and financial restrictions abroad they settled for a week in Aviemore. Unfortunately the skiing isn't up and running yet here,  despite more than enough snow for it in Coire Cas just now. Instead of sliding down a hill,  they fancied seeing what walking up the hills would be like.

Snow to 400m

Nice morning 

Lower trail

Lovely textured snow

We met up in a the cafe at Aviemore and after buying a few essential bits of kit we had a chat about various routes and hills. We settled for a day on Sgor Gaoithe. This is a lovely hill snd a Munro. It is not too big a day for novices plus no seriously steep slopes. Sounded ideal for them. We set off mid morning. There wasn't a single other car at the carpark. 

Giving the youngsters a go at trail breaking!

Beautiful 

Cloud clearing

There had been no one recently on the hill so it was trail breaking as soon as we left the treeline. The clouds started breaking up and we had some lovely bright periods as we made our way up one of the lesser routes on the hill. The hills in Glen Feshie are great for choosing different routes to gain the highest summits.

Hard going

Great views

Some sun

It was looking promising around 1pm with some sun and blue skies at the 900m contour. We had the hill to ourselves and it was glorious. Wonderful snow cover and brilliant light.

Beautiful light

Selfie time

Will the summit be clear?

Our hopes were dashed at 950m when we got engulfed in cloud and the views disappeared. It was map and compass time to get across the featureless plateau and up the final slopes to Sgor Gaoithe's summit. Becky and Matt fancied a go at the navigation, soon finding that holding a bearing in a whiteout and walking in ankle deep snow is a tricky old business!

Navigation in the white room

The final steps to the summit 

Unfortunately there was absolutely no view at the summit. Just a wall of white. Great effort and the couples first Munro. Days are quite  short this time of year. We had the torches on for the final hour back to the carpark.  A top day and fabulously wild, remote. A winter wonderland. 

Headtorch decent