Last week, Lucy was out with Brian exploring the ridges of Arran and making the most of some fine weather.
The last couple of days have seen a gradual thaw accompanied by damp conditions. We didn't let that stop us today and headed up on to the hills above Kinlochleven with friend Jen. Once on the ride, the wind was pretty ferocious and conditions under foot slippery with wet snow and melting ice. We topped out on Na Gruagaichean and retraced our steps towards Kinlochleven.
As we descended below the cloudbase, we were treated to the most fabulous views of Loch Leven and the Pap of Glencoe.
A personal mountaineering day for us yesterday, on the East Ridge of Carn Dearg Mheadonach. Its a stunning ridge, on the north side (facing Aonach Mor) of the horseshoe that includes in the Carn mor Dearg Arete and the summit of Ben nevis. The route was not in great condition. In fact, thanks to the recent mild weather and only a cosmetic covering of snow, it was a tottering pile and a great deal of care required! A thaw is due tomorrow, and then hopefully a return to more wintery conditions. Fingers crossed for a bit of consolidation up high. The mountains (and those that love them) need it!
With fresh snow overnight and more falling, we headed out East today for a bit of a winter warm up, in search of the famous "White Room" and some navigation. Although snow fell all day, we didn't really find whiteout conditions, but we did do plenty of nav: up A' Cailleach and over towards Carn Slugain, two rounded Munros in the Monadhliadh. We had a great day, visited a bothy we hadn't been to before. We enjoyed a few sightings of bounding mountain hares along the way.
Mountain Hare tracks
Lucy writes: We are enjoying settling in to our base up near Fort William and although winter is a little sparse at the moment, we've been seeking it out up high. Today Wally and I set off with friend Jen for Creag Meagaidh. With cold firm snow patches, its in very friendly condition for hill walkers at the moment, with none of the frequent avalanche hazard in The Window.
Not much snow in The Window!
It was cold and beautiful up on the Plateau. A chilly wind kept everyone moving to the summit. We descended via Puist Coire Ardair and cut steps on several snow patches on the way down.
Viewranger track of our route.
Lucy writes: I'm just back from a magical week in the French Alps on an International Mountain Leader award winter training course based in Le Grand Bornand with Plas Y Brenin. During the week we encountered varied snow conditions, from hard old snow to epic amounts of fresh that fell towards the end of the week. We covered all aspects of safe travel, including avalanche and snowpack awareness, terrain, weather and route choice. There was lots of learning anf fun adventures on Snowshoes around our base at Le Grand Bornand. After the course finished I spent a couple of days with some of the others from the course exploring on snowshoes and putting our new skills in to practice.
The Arran Hills are currently snow free.
We are excited to have started 2017 with a brand new site that better reflects what we do and the beautiful places that we work in. Over the next few weeks we will be adding content to the site. We hope that it will not only be a great showcase for our walks, but also for Arran and the outdoors in general.
In other news, I (Lucy) am off to the Alps on a training course next week, and not long after I get back, Wally and I will be moving our base temporarily up to Lochaber to begin offering our winter walks on the Scottish Mainland until the end of March. We will be coming back to Arran from time to time so if you are interested in a walk/wildlife watching on Arran its still definitely worth getting in touch.
