Coming from the north-west, the weather was banging and rattling on Scotlands mountains. Paul and I worked our way up the eastern slopes of Beinn Heasgarnaich, near Killin, facing into a gale of wind which carried stinging flakes of icy snow. Visibility came and went. At times, the rumpus would slacken off; and then with a mad gust the wind would demand imperiously that we "assume the position" -------- the Position in this case being a half-crouch, sticks dug in, head down, waiting until the ruffian decided we could move forward again, as the snow and hail fled past and bounced about.
But north-westerly weather is often in "lumps".
Each squall would clear to give views of the surrounding hills and
streaks of blue sky. Onwards and upwards the summit ridge gleamed
white, but with spindrift pluming off it in great columns. Windy then.
A stream would lead us to a lochan at 1000
metres, which was the key to the final summit. But at times we could
see little except each other, so it was too easy to follow an unmapped
side channel !
Paul was just ahead and to the left, on the last slope, and as I came over the rise I saw he'd found a summit cairn. Photos then? Er.......no, because just at that moment the wind made a big 60 mph push, and standing up became more of a priority than fiddling with camera. As the vis. was going again, we scuttled back to the 1000 metre lochan whilst we still knew its whereabouts!.
No more weather worries now .......well wrapped up, all we had to do was follow the outflow from the lochan back through uncomplicated ground to the heather far below.
Altogether, Beinn Heasgarnaich was a good choice for a "wild and woolly" short day:- straightforward navigation, reasonable terrain, the east slope in the lee of the weather, ....oh, and you can drive up the (private) hydro road and park your car at 500 metres. For height gain and distance, very much like walking into Sneachda on many a winter's day!
As the forecast was for still more
north-westerlies on Sunday, our next move was to the east! Over to the
Glenshee Road, where after a good meal at Bridge of Cally Hotel
(well-deserved plug) we checked in at the Spittal bunkhouse with 2
mountain bikes hired.
Boots and Saddles" was at 8.00 am, and we were
off for 50 minutes ride up Glen Taitneach. All the way, we saw herd
after herd of deer on the hillsides, and the whole glen was echoing
with the bellowing of the stags.
Sunday's route was a long way in to the southern Cairngorms area, to Carn an Righ (the "Hill of the King") which is 13km (8 miles) from the road.
The second section after dumping the bikes, was a path climbing past waterfalls into the snowy surroundings of Loch nan Eun, at about 700 metres. As we emerged into the high level area, the summits were clear, albeit under a full cloudy sky.
Now it was only 2 miles to our mountain, down a side valley to a lonely bealach, which really did begin to feel remote, given the weather. At least the wind had largely died down. The huge Cairngorm hares were frequently seen against the snow.
As we made our final push up to the summit, the cloud rolled in. It must have been a great mass of warmer air to carry all that mist, because the pressure changed incredibly.At one stage, although we were clearly going uphill, my altimeter started going backwards!
Anyway, a summit cairn was found, calm enough for a picture this time, and a compass bearing got us back to the bealach.
As the weather began to deteriorate, we got back to Loch nan Eun, down the waterfall path, and astride the bikes.
YeeHaaa!!!!!!!........a freewheeling zoom back
down the glen, spray everywhere as we shot through pool after pool, and
even a proper small river crossing. Pretty wet back at the Spittal,
just as the rain caught up with us. But as the bunkhouse was open, warm
showers and a homeward drive finished off the wintry afternoon.
Andrew E. & Paul W.