As Jenni said in her post 'Railways, Rambling and Ruminating' I ran off to Scotland with the car last week. But you'll be pleased to hear that training didn't stop for me, it just changed slightly, mainly due to the addition of snow.
The week got off to an amazing start with some skiing at Glenshee. I was relieved to find that after a year of not skiing I could still get down a slope without too many (major) incidents. Even the Scottish weather managed to remain fairly good and for most of the time I could see more than 3 feet in front of me!!!
Wednesday was set to be a day of pure sunshine (I didn't believe it either), so I set off with the intention of climbing some munros in the Lochnagar area which included, Cac Carn Beag and Cuidhe Crom. A member of the Trailwalker support crew (my mum) was also attempting this munro mission although somehow I ended up carrying everything... However, I guess I'm the one who needs the exersize so I didn't mind really. We had a bit of an exciting journey to the car park at the start of the climb. A deer jumped right out in front of the car (don't worry we didn't hit it)! A little further along the road we found loads of deer:
As we approached Lochnagar we could see the beautiful snow covered peaks of the munros and wondered how far we'd get with climbing them. We had a lot of winter weather gear with us but snowy conditions are pretty dangerous for climbing and I've only ever climbed munros in summer when snow isn't an issue. But the snow did give me the chance to get some arty photos:
Footprints marked the path quite nicely for us and we got all the way up to the top of the first 'munro' Meikle Pap. Unfortunately, although this mountain is tall enough to be a munro, it isn't classed as one since you climb it on the way to the higher munro Cac Carn Beag. It was quite a struggle just getting up this smaller mountain because of the crazy winds that were blowing near the top (see video below). The other munros would be reached by climbing a ridge...
...but unfortunately the wind was too strong and it would have been too dangerous. I was pretty disappointed but it gives me an excuse to go back to this amazing part of Scotland again.
The journey back down the munro was... er... interesting. The wind had blown all trace of footprints away and snow completely covered everything. So we carefully set off hoping we wouldn't disappear in the snow. You may laugh at this but on several (hundred) occasions our feet and most of our legs disappeared under the snow. The tops of the heather could just be seen poking out so we knew we couldn't disappear completely and I decided the only thing to do was run for it. Moving quicker over the snow kind of stopped me sinking into it quite so much (and gave quite a lot of amusement to anyone watching). The other exciting thing about the descent was seeing a white hare.
That was the main part of the training although I also climbed a smaller hill in the Bennachie range which wasn't exactly as challenging as a munro but it was a lovely walk.
The week got off to an amazing start with some skiing at Glenshee. I was relieved to find that after a year of not skiing I could still get down a slope without too many (major) incidents. Even the Scottish weather managed to remain fairly good and for most of the time I could see more than 3 feet in front of me!!!
Wednesday was set to be a day of pure sunshine (I didn't believe it either), so I set off with the intention of climbing some munros in the Lochnagar area which included, Cac Carn Beag and Cuidhe Crom. A member of the Trailwalker support crew (my mum) was also attempting this munro mission although somehow I ended up carrying everything... However, I guess I'm the one who needs the exersize so I didn't mind really. We had a bit of an exciting journey to the car park at the start of the climb. A deer jumped right out in front of the car (don't worry we didn't hit it)! A little further along the road we found loads of deer:
As we approached Lochnagar we could see the beautiful snow covered peaks of the munros and wondered how far we'd get with climbing them. We had a lot of winter weather gear with us but snowy conditions are pretty dangerous for climbing and I've only ever climbed munros in summer when snow isn't an issue. But the snow did give me the chance to get some arty photos:
Footprints marked the path quite nicely for us and we got all the way up to the top of the first 'munro' Meikle Pap. Unfortunately, although this mountain is tall enough to be a munro, it isn't classed as one since you climb it on the way to the higher munro Cac Carn Beag. It was quite a struggle just getting up this smaller mountain because of the crazy winds that were blowing near the top (see video below). The other munros would be reached by climbing a ridge...
...but unfortunately the wind was too strong and it would have been too dangerous. I was pretty disappointed but it gives me an excuse to go back to this amazing part of Scotland again.
The journey back down the munro was... er... interesting. The wind had blown all trace of footprints away and snow completely covered everything. So we carefully set off hoping we wouldn't disappear in the snow. You may laugh at this but on several (hundred) occasions our feet and most of our legs disappeared under the snow. The tops of the heather could just be seen poking out so we knew we couldn't disappear completely and I decided the only thing to do was run for it. Moving quicker over the snow kind of stopped me sinking into it quite so much (and gave quite a lot of amusement to anyone watching). The other exciting thing about the descent was seeing a white hare. That was the main part of the training although I also climbed a smaller hill in the Bennachie range which wasn't exactly as challenging as a munro but it was a lovely walk.
8 comments:
Woo, a video on our blog, very hi-tech :-) And featuring one lovely member of our support crew sporting a very patriotic hat!!!
The photos looks amazing though. So gutted I couldn't come.
Looks awesome.
P.S. exersize???
P.P.S. I'm loving writing P.S.'s a LOT right now. I don't know why.
Ok you'll have to ignore any spelling and grammar mistakes as I'm sure there's a million of them. I'm a scientist and I wrote it in a rush (I hope that's a good enough excuse)!
Lol, it's forgiven :-p
Love the photos :)
lush photos, reminds me of many happy hikes in scotland with my uni hiking club. :)
(one of jenni's friends from school)
From Dorothy - the support crew:
Diana didn't quite carry everything - I carried my own walking stick, otherwise I would have been blown off the mountain! Anyone who wants to join the second attempt to reach the summit (sometime in the future!!) is more than welcome - it was fabulous.
ooh, I want to come :)
(and hi andrea!)
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