8 February 2015
Hill walking on a cloudy day? No problem! Skiing? A tad more difficult. So with a forecast for wall-to-wall sunshine it had to be skiing. Glenshee was a popular destination: Allan, Miguel , Dan, Andrew, Berenice, Ed, Ishbel, Dave and Jen all headed for the pistes. The snow was in general good; some wind-scoured but not particularly icy. The real stars of the day were the people who challenged themselves to new and more difficult runs, in particular Miguel (only his third time on skis), Berenice, Ed and Ishbel. All four made really excellent progress, well done! Being able to sit outside for lunch made for a truly pleasant day.
Daniela and Martin were heading ski-touring and decided Glenshee wasn’t looking ideal for it so headed off to visit the Boar of Badenoch at Drumochter. “Martin and I were able to put skis on from the car park and managed 3 long descents down An Torc (twice, 200m) and A’Mharconaich (500m) in bright sunshine. The valley was well covered in snow and so were all S and SE facing slopes. We simply ascended and descended the same slopes. Unfortunately we had to cut short the summit-to-summit tour because of the fog setting in later in the day.” – Daniela
Jon, Hazel and Simon were also at Drumochter but skied Geal Charn and Creagan Mor from Balsporran: “The snow cover was excellent on the west side of the road and we were able to ski from the railway to within 30m of the Geal Charn summit. Unfortunately the top was scoured clear of snow so it was skis off to reach the cairn (Munro tick for Hazel, last of the “Drumochter 4″ for her). With the summit ticked, the lack of snow on the tops, and the cold wind and hill fog up there we decided to drop back down. Less than a hundred metres lower down the sun was blazing, there was no wind, complete snow coverage, and great views, so we enjoyed the ski right back down and then headed up Creagan Mor to grab another descent to round off a short but enjoyable day out. Creagan Mor’s south-east facing slope offered firm fresh snow just softening nicely in the sun, whilst Geal Charn offered a much longer descent with great views north, albeit on an icier snowpack that felt a lot like carving up a piste (but without the crowds!)” – Jon