24th January 2012 - Creag Meagaidh

The Wall to No Where

The Wall appears again, this time flanked with some cornice build up

Temperatures hadn't started to rise, no running water evident here at all

This was the visibility at the best of times

Graham builds his throne for lunch

 

A river crossing and a little Divine Intervention...

A well earned rest

So today Graham and I decided to get a winter hill day in. Due to the ridiculous lateness of our decision process last night, we opted for a route on Creag Meagaidh so that we could look at some nav and other winter skills. The SAIS forecast was poor, so we had to choose our route carefully, avoiding loaded slopes as much as possible.

We set off through some horrifically boggy ground, drenching my nice new boots - but they held up well! We waited until we had hit the snow line before we started some nav practice, just basic relocation and some pacing/timing looking at our natural walking speed on different slopes. When we hit the main ridge of Creag na Cailliche we started focussing more on where we were and methods of relocating in poor visibility. We did reasonably well, utilising techniques of following bearings accurately both on our own and making use of other people. It was a long slog though, neither of us were feeling particularly energetic, but the craic as always was top notch so the harder stuff passed by quickly enough.

The final kilometre to the summit was full on white out conditions in notoriously dodgy ground, the ridge narrows right down so there was the very real threat of cornices. However, our pacing and timing was good, and we followed our bearings pretty well, landing within about 10 metres of the summit cairn! Here we had a quick lunch (and Graham enjoyed a kingly chair which he created out of snow) before heading off into the whiteness. The snow build up on the summit was incredible, and its so easy to mistake shapes in the snow for other things. There was more than one occasion when we called a warning shout to each other thinking we were on a dodgy edge when in fact it was a shallow snow bank!

We managed to dog leg successfully on very little ground features, and hit our target bang on over a 1.5 km leg which we were both impressed with considering the zero visibility, poor terrain and our tired legs! Timing was about 5% off, but our catchment feature was large and obvious. We now put the compasses away as we were out of the cloud, and focussed on looking at the snow pack, shear tests, hasty pits and the effects of cross loading in the mountain environment. A few slippy river crossings (see the video for some divine intervention - Graham will never call me a pr*ck again!) and a lively trudge down the Moy soon saw us back on ugly boggy ground before making our way back to the car, still in good light. A cracking day with cracking company, with good nav practice making me feel ever so slightly more confident. Cheers for a great day Graham!