{"id":7093,"date":"2020-03-17T22:20:35","date_gmt":"2020-03-17T22:20:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/?p=7093"},"modified":"2022-04-11T16:38:37","modified_gmt":"2022-04-11T15:38:37","slug":"snowy-scotland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/snowy-scotland\/","title":{"rendered":"Snowy Scotland"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It’s a long while<\/a> since I’ve been to Scotland, and even longer since the last winter trip. It was a suitably exciting reintroduction though, with day one taking in the three Munros of Sgairneach Mhor, Beinn Udlamain and A’ Mharconaich from Drumochter Pass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Looking upwards shortly before Sgairneach Mhor was engulfed in cloud for the day.
\u00a9 Haydn Williams 2020<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The day started well, with sunglasses donned and a nice view of our proposed circuit. My intention was to walk to the summit of Sgairneach Mhor with everyone, and then run onwards from there. However, Scotland had other ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“No, it was a nice easy walk.”
\u00a9 Haydn Williams 2020<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As well as unrunnable snow, we were presented with conditions as close to whiteout as it’s possible to be without being fully there. I was walking confidently<\/s> tentatively on bearings presented by Phil, who did sterling work all day navigating us over the summit and onwards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A momentary peep through the clouds.
\u00a9 Haydn Williams 2020<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Similar conditions prevailed over the remaining two summits, before we descended steeply down and into some visibility not far from the car. The descent was punctuated by some bum-sliding, although conditions weren’t optimal, unfortunately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Descending A’ Mharconaich at the end of the day.
\u00a9 Haydn Williams 2020<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To call the next day “a bit driech” is an act of humungous understatement. With a forecast of extremely strong winds, a walk described as a “smash and grab” was planned to bag the Corbett of Beinn Bh\u00e0n. I did no smashing or grabbing, making a strategic descent when the ‘gnarl’ outweighed the ‘fun’. Others were made of sterner stuff, and persevered to the summit inside another cloud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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My camera doesn’t have enough range to capture the full grimness level.
\u00a9 Haydn Williams 2020<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

With a forecast for further interesting conditions, I made the strategic call to have a quick blast up somewhere on Sunday before heading home a little earlier than planned. The ‘somewhere’ turned out to be Geal-charn, again from Drumochter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Shortly before the turn around point, Geal-charn.
\u00a9 Haydn Williams 2020<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I had a minor hiccup inasmuch as I forgot to steal a map from Phil, and at exactly the point I realised this while sat in the carpark, nine (!) mountain rescue team vehicles pulled in and parked up. I took the hint and followed an easy track up to just below a bwlch at 750m, where I hit the cloud and so turned around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Things got a bit harey. #sorrynotsorry
\u00a9 Haydn Williams 2020<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

From there I whizzed (post-holed) back down again, and commenced the long drive south. By the end of the day I had remembered just how much effort it takes nowadays to get to the Highlands. Nevertheless, I had a great time and it was a lovely reminder of why I should make the effort more often. It’s just such hard work now compared to when we were young<\/a> and keen and full of too much energy! \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s a long while since I’ve been to Scotland, and even longer since the last winter trip.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7097,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1394,213,396,1062,307,1392,372,376],"class_list":["post-7093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-outdoors","tag-highlands","tag-mps","tag-running","tag-scotland","tag-snow","tag-spean-bridge","tag-walking","tag-winter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7093\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}