Gwilym's Adventure Blog

What does an Outdoor Instructor do when snowed in? Well, obviously not stay in the house. Having realised the car was going nowhere the next thing to do was measure the snow on my door step. Only having a 15cm ruler to hand I can say the snow was deeper than 15cm and in some of the drifts a lot deeper. Drink some coffee whilst making plans Ski round to a friends house to drop of a sledge for her children and then ski onto my parents for lunch. Drink more coffee. After lunch, dig out access to their shed and garage and clear a cornice form the roof. Ski home and build a snowman that is the spitting image of one of my work colleagues Drink more coffee As much as I would like to get up on the local hills, the roads are still pretty snowy (ie more skiable than driveable) so have to see what tomorrow brings.

Today with wild weather up in the hills I spent some time catching up on admin in the Active Cafe. Olly and I then snatched a few minutes outside at the Hayfield setting up my old skis for him to use tomorrow for our planned tour.

Today Stu and I triggered a slide on the West Face of Aonach Mor. Why? Here are my thoughts Last night we looked at the SAIS forcast This showed that the W/SW aspects were the least likely to be affected with a forecast of LOW We chose to go to The West Face of Aonach Mor and climb a route called Golden Oldy (II). This would have put us on the lower risk side of the mountain. Winds were forecast as low speed Easterly and picking up during the afternoon. This of course would move snow over to the west during the day but hopefully later in the day. Our plan was simple. Skin up to the summit of Anoach Mor, ditch skis, either down climb Downhill Gully (1) or walk round to the Aonach Mor/Aonach Beag beleach and approach the routes from there. These would mean we did not have to carry skis and they would be at the top for our descent. During our planning phase we had considered the weather, the party (2 competent mountaineers) and the terrain During the ...

Today Will and I headed to Glenshee for some touring but there was far less snow than we had hoped for so we actually skinned up the edge of the unused pistes and skiied a mix of the open and closed runs. Unbelievable really as there was over a foot of snow around in Braemar but the hills were badly scoured

Today I had a bit of a long journey to Braemar to meet my cousin. Due to road closure I had to go via Keith and Aberdeen. Anyway, the road to Glenshee was also closed so we spent some time in the stadium in Braemar using transceivers and looking at avalanche avoidance.

Today Will and I headed to the Ski Centre at Cairngorm and were joined by another Will and Ollie. We skinned up the pistes to the top cafe for a latte before skiing the ciste gully. Then it was a skin back up with some ferocious wind to join the top of the White Lady pisted run just as the funicular goes into the tunnel for a great ski back to the van. A good way to grab 4 hours of entertainment with some strong wind giving us a facial scrub

Steve and I were back out in Drumochter on skis today with a ascent of Sgairneach Mhor 991m. It was blue skies and calm wind on the way up but near the summit the wind picked up and the clouds rolled in. Our plans for the horseshoe were foiled by the distinct lack of snow on the other side as the winds had scoured it completely. We ended up skiing back the way we had come but this was great with some icy but continuous skiing all the way back to the car with only a few hundred metres of skinning required on the way back.

Today Steve and I headed to Glenshee and ski toured Carn nan Sac 920m just before the Glenshee ski centre. We managed to ski road to road with only 50m near the top that was too rocky so we had to walk to the cairn. This gave us about 3.5km of skiing losing around 500m in height. It was a great day out and the weather played ball for us giving some stunning view across the mountains

Today with the weather looking slightly better we headed to Ben Lawers for a ski tour. We again made it up to around 850/900m before the clag set in and visibility was so poor that I had to take my sun glasses off. It was then on with the goggles for a great descent back down to within 500m of the car.  great 4 hours out on the hill snatched from another day with a poor forecast.

Last night I met up with good friend Steve and discussed our options for the day. As it was due to snow and be windy he suggested we ski toured Geal Carn. "It will be fun" he said. So after turning off the A9 and digging our way into the Balsporran Cottages car park, we put our skins on and headed up the land rover track towards the summit. On the way we battled 60 mph wind face to face before deciding enough was enough at around 840m and turning round. Oh yeah, 60 mph winds on your back whilst on skis is so much better (not). So after getting blown down the hill, falling over in unseen pillows of snow, getting soaking wet and tripping over heather, we had to dig out the car. That is moving all the snow we dug out to get the car in and then some more.  "That was fun" said Steve and I had to agree, it was very good. A very good day on the hill that was testing but enjoyable.