Friday 12 – Sunday 14 January 2024
The annual Dry Veganuary meet in Kincraig – this has to be one of my meets in the calendar. The location is excellent, the area offers a lot of variety in terms of possible activities, and the pub is just lovely!
After a quiet Friday night in the Suie Bar, groups of people went off on different adventures on Saturday with the forecast being (frankly) miserable. Four of us took advantage of Paul’s offer of winter navigation training with experience in crampon use and ice axe skills. The Northern Corries looked lovely at sunrise but as we ascended visibility dropped and the wind picked up. Stopping for navigation exercises resulted in feeling very cold very quickly. But Paul is a professional! He demonstrated great leadership skills and I picked up many practical points, not only on navigation but also on general behaviour, team work and (importantly!) avoidance of cooling down. We all got a go at navigating and taking a bearing, but on the plateau Paul’s expertise in navigation was needed to get us across and to the summit of Cairn Gorm. We finished by illegally walking down the ski slopes (sorry!) and warming up in the Ptarmigan Café.
After the Saturday evening meal, as is tradition, we dialled into the Banff Film Festival World Tour. There were funny, plain mad and thought-provoking films and many were discussed afterwards in the pub.
On Sunday, Isabel, Paul and I went for a restorative walk by Loch Insh and I took the opportunity of a dook in the 1 degree water – thankfully, someone had hacked a hole in the ice for me! To warm up, I got a delicious Cullen skink in the Outdoor Centre, after which we trundled back to Dundee.
Another great DMC weekend, thank you all!
- Report by Heinke