Saturday 6th April 2013
With the fantastic spell of clear, calm weather continuing and unseasonably cold temperatures still preserving the snow, it would surely be a crime for any self respecting ski tourers not to be taking the opportunity to get out once again! So, Simon, Hazel and I headed for the hills to the west of Glenshee for a slightly longer route taking in some fantastic descents on excellent snow.
The weather was better than forecast, with much of the the day being cloudless and no wind. From the ski centre car park we skinned up the burn and headed out to the west – down across Loch Vrotachan then traversing around the north of Carn a Gheoidh into Coire Clachach, which was filled with perfect dry packed powder and gave us our first excellent descent of the day. From the bottom we crossed the upper Baddoch Burn and skinned up to one of the eastern tops of Carn a’ Chlarsaich. We had thought of going further but having passed by so much great snow already we decided we’d rather take our time enjoying it! So we skied back east to the col at the top of the Baddoch burn – another lovely descent – and then headed back up to the top of Coire Clachach to ski it again. This time we enjoyed its full length and then traversed northwards around to the next valley, which we skinned up in a southeasterly direction regaining the ridge overlooking Loch Vrotachan. Once we were high enough (about 850m) we took our skins off and traversed around above the loch reaching the the edge of the ski area around 5:15pm, giving us empty pistes back to the car. A perfect day of skiing; 20km total ( GPS track here ).
- Jon Bowyer
