Proper winter day, but with much wailing & gnashing of teeth.
14th January 2017
(Above) Gorgeous view towards the Creag Meagaidh massif this morning. A lot of snow on all the aspects visible to the camera, mainly East and South East. For once the visible snow cover doesn’t flatter to deceive.
(Above) Â Meall Coire Choille Rais 1028m with the lower section of the Creag Mhor ridge on the near skyline. A lot of snow on these East and South East (+ some South) aspects; big bulges of recent windslab are immediately obvious.
(Above) Great cover at lower altitudes again today. The vehicle tracks were made yesterday but filled in again overnight by snowfall + drifting. Sron a Ghoire in the background also holding quite a lot of snow on its East and South Eastern flanks.
Great weather but a hugely frustrating day. Original plan was for a ski tour up to the true bealach of Sron a Ghoire – between the twin summits in the photo above. However, equipment failure after just 400m. ‘Tech’ binding didn’t want to….er, bind… but later found out it was a problem with the finely engineered toe piece of my boot. Perhaps a tad too finely engineered for robust use?
Anyway, after a false start I binned the skis and decided to foot-soldier up a judiciously chosen line on Sron a Ghoire linking together scoured ribbons of ground. Snow didn’t look horrendously deep at the outset (above photo).
(Above) Doesn’t look too bad..? Â Wrong! Â Thigh deep in seemingly innocuous places. So binned that idea as well.
Was rapidly running out of ideas.
And patience.
The battery in my camera also died.  Great! That’s my camera + case next to the rucsac. Had to resort to the camera on my phone instead.
Decided on yet another change of plan, so backtracked to look for options over on Carn Liath.
(Above) To my great relief found a wee trench through the birch made by some Carn Liath-bound Munroists, for which I am eternally grateful.
Good humour and patience restored, I finally made some meaningful uphill progress.
Turned into an OK day!
Weather forecast for Sunday looks fairly grim though. Wet and really mild. But I’ve got two days off.
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torridonadmin
15th January 2017 5:01 pm
I was hurting with you all the way TR. Nice photos.
meagaidhadmin
15th January 2017 5:23 pm
Drowning not waving, Andy!