A day of whiteout in the Southern Cairngorms

Today we had originally planned a hill walking day in Glenshee, consisting of 6 munros. The weather wasn't looking great, but didn't look bad either. However, when we arrived at the car park we were greeted with 15metres of visability and heavy rain.

Not long after beginning the ascent of the first munro of the day - Creag Leacach - the rain turned to sleet followed by snow, and the visability got worse. The rest of the day from here consisted of constant nav in whiteout, snow, hail and wind, with a maximum of 20metres of vis. Lovely!

scree slopes on Creag Leacach

My amazing nav skills led us straight to the summit of Creag Leacach up its north western scree slopes where it was super windy. The photo below is not blurred, that is the wind and driving snow!

A pregnant Keith at the first summit!

I then led us over to Glas Moal, over a pretty much featureless plateau which was rather interesting in todays conditions!

After sheltering as best we could at the cairn on the summit of Glas Moal and refueling with some sandwiches, we decided to ditch the next 4 hills as everything was taking much longer than anticipated and the wind was getting worse. I was also freezing as it was around minus 12 with wind chill today, and had to get my emergency mittens and hand warmers out due to my gloves being soaked right through. Keith then took over navigating and we worked our way back down to the road where a 4-5km walk awaited.

more whiteout

Once we reached the final few hundred metres of descent something magical happened....visibility! Here is a very bare looking Glenshee ski slope for this time of year:

ski slopes

The day then suddenly turned around the nearer to the road we got; we were faced with clearer skies and lovely views :)

finally some nice weather...infact it was still raining

As usual after the descent my knee was throbbing, so Keith sped off up the road whilst I limped behind with the intention of meeting him at the ski centre to avoid me walking down the steep part of the road. I made it to the ski centre and sat down on a bench, and 3minutes later Keith appeared in the car. Turns out Mr Lazy had hitched a lift from some guy who he refers to as a 'Legend'. I'm glad though as it saved sitting in the cold for 45minutes waiting for him to walk the 3k down the road.

We headed home, had a shower and sorted the gear out, then went over to pick up polar pup from her babysitters. It seems she has made herself right at home there today, and was even taken to pets at home to choose her new bed. So so spoilt. Its so comfy that she was very reluctant to get up to come home with us! She won't be looking forward to sleeping in her old bed at home tonight thats for sure.

A super comfy doggy woggy!

Janey and Keith