So what is really weather? Thats a hard one to answer. Scottish winter mountaineering is not like summer alpine weather. In the Alps you usually only go out if its a nice day. In Scotland it is rarely a "nice" day. Those stunning blue bird days of clear skies and crisp snow where you can walk in a T-shrit all day and enjoy life and rare. Really rare.
Real Scottish winter weather is pretty brutal. Lizzy and I were reminded of this today. Lizzy had hoped over from sky for a few days of winter mountaineering with me. Now I had never been out with Lizzy before so a short bimmble from the Cairngorm Ski Centre carpark was on the cards.
We met in the carpark and after a quick chat about the apocalyptic weather forecast (heavy snow and strong winds) we geared up and headed out. The route was to wander up to point 1141, then over to the summit of Cairngorm, then back down to the carpark.
The idea was to see what the weather was like and always be happy to turn back if it got silly.
So up we went. It was very very windy. It snowed, a lot. All this before we left the carpark. but we carried on. Up we want to the top of the ski tows on the Fiacaill a Choire Chais.
Real Scottish winter weather is pretty brutal. Lizzy and I were reminded of this today. Lizzy had hoped over from sky for a few days of winter mountaineering with me. Now I had never been out with Lizzy before so a short bimmble from the Cairngorm Ski Centre carpark was on the cards.
We met in the carpark and after a quick chat about the apocalyptic weather forecast (heavy snow and strong winds) we geared up and headed out. The route was to wander up to point 1141, then over to the summit of Cairngorm, then back down to the carpark.
The idea was to see what the weather was like and always be happy to turn back if it got silly.
So up we went. It was very very windy. It snowed, a lot. All this before we left the carpark. but we carried on. Up we want to the top of the ski tows on the Fiacaill a Choire Chais.
Cairngorm
Horizontal snow as we head up the ridge.
The weather was bad but not un manageable, so we headed up to point 1141. Where the weather eased a bit. So we decided to navigate to the summit of Cairn Gorm. We had a quick chat about winter navigation strategies then off we went. We found the summit without much difficulty, after all there is a massive weather station on it!
The summit of Cairn Gorm.
Now came the task of navigating our way off the summit. We decided to head for the Ptarmigan station as it should prove quite a good catching feature. As we left the summit the weather closed in properly. Visibility dropped to a few meters, and then only if there were rocks in front of us. We had endeared a proper whiteout. After a period of time we hit ski fences. I was glad to find them. Whiteouts do funny things to your head. There is nothing to fall off between the summit of Cairn Gorm and the Ptarmigan station, but that doesn't stop you expecting to fall off some unseen hazard when navigating in zero visibility.
We reached the ski toes an realised that we were about 100m East of the station. So turning to a new bearing we headed off to find the station. We found it. Upsettingly the ski doors were locked. We could see people inside though so went round to the wakers entrance and rang the bell and knocked on the glass.
We were let inside by some very surprised looking Cairngorm Staff. We looked like snowmen. My pockets and bag had filled up with spin drift and I had a large clump of snow attached to the windward side of my face. We were told that the ski road was about to be closed, so we decided to call it a day and get the train down.
It was a proper introduction to the challenges of really bad winter weather.
We reached the ski toes an realised that we were about 100m East of the station. So turning to a new bearing we headed off to find the station. We found it. Upsettingly the ski doors were locked. We could see people inside though so went round to the wakers entrance and rang the bell and knocked on the glass.
We were let inside by some very surprised looking Cairngorm Staff. We looked like snowmen. My pockets and bag had filled up with spin drift and I had a large clump of snow attached to the windward side of my face. We were told that the ski road was about to be closed, so we decided to call it a day and get the train down.
It was a proper introduction to the challenges of really bad winter weather.