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On Sunday I climbed my 100th Munro: Glas Tulaichean near Glen Shee. I was with Michael and a guy called Silas who I'd met through No2ID; Michael stayed over at our flat in Edinburgh the night before, so we could set off appropriately early.
I hadn't realised how comparatively easy it is to access the Highlands from Glasgow by public transport until I moved to Edinburgh: while the situation there isn't ideal (no trains on a Sunday, for instance), it's far better than over here. Consequently, we hired a car for the day. Except I couldn't find any car hire places in town that were open on a Saturday night, and had to schlep out to the airport. And then negotiate the maze of twisty roadworks that central Edinburgh has become as a result of the construction of the tram system. I don't drive often, and one of the major reasons for that is that I really don't enjoy it. Oh well...
The day itself was pretty good. After some initial faff collecting Silas, we left the city at first light, and parked at the Dalmunzie Hotel shortly after ten. The guidebook and the signs said that we needed to secure permission to park there, but the hotel was closed for the Christmas period; after a bit of looking around, we found something that was presumably the owners' quarters, and got the nod from the teenage girl of the house. Then off into the snow. Yes, snow in the UK - the car park was at just over 300m, and we were in snow the whole day. We headed off down the path, and had just crossed over a river when we met a posh (but extremely friendly) guy in a pickup truck, who turned out to be the estate owner. We met him again several times over the next couple of hours: he was going back and forth clearing the path of snow so that he could get his clients up it for eagle hunting the next day. Hunting hares with eagles, that is¹ - though apparently domesticated eagles aren't up to much as hunting animals. They don't have the fitness of wild eagles, and can't fly uphill, so if they miss the hare first time (as usually happens), they just land and wait to be carried back up to the top of the hill.
We hit low cloud at about 600m, and from then on everything was white: white cloud above, white snow below. Visibility was between 30 and 50 metres. Fortunately, we'd chosen a route without any steep cliffs on either side. At nearly 2pm, Silas called out that he could see the trig point on the summit, and we all hurried towards the vague shape in the mist.
"That's not a trig point."
"What is it?"
"It's a fencepost."
"No it isn't. What is it really?"
"I'm telling you, it's a fencepost. I can tell by the pixels, and from having seen many ice-covered fenceposts in my time."
It was at this point that we spotted the real trig point at the edge of visibility, and hastened over. Michael had brought tea, and Silas had brought whisky to celebrate. Both were extremely welcome. Photos were taken. Then we headed back down - we'd initially planned to carry on to Carn an Righ, but with only a little over two hours of daylight remaining, the decision to go down was obvious. Our route had wandered a bit on the way up, so (over my objections) we headed off on a bearing rather than retracing our steps, but we obviously need to work on our compass technique because we soon found ourselves on a slope that was far too steep and realised that we'd left the ridge. We took out our crampons; Michael's sandwiches took this opportunity to make a break for freedom and skidded off down the valley and out of sight. I hope livestock don't eat them: the swine fever epidemic a couple of years ago was probably caused by a pig eating a hiker's discarded sandwich.
We were back down to the valley floor shortly after four: it was definitely getting dark by this time, and we walked back along the valley in the gathering twilight. The cloud had started to lift a bit, though, and we got some idea of the views we might have seen. Next time. Not being idiots, we had torches, but weren't especially planning on using them. Fortunately, we didn't have to: we reached the car just before five, while there was still a tiny bit of light to see by. Overall, we'd walked about 14km and gained 700m of height, in six and a half hours: not exactly great speed, but in light of the conditions, I think we did OK.
A change of socks, an indifferent meal at the Spittal of Glenshee pub (with Attack of the Clones on in the background), and then the long drive back to Edinburgh along winding dark country roads, pausing to drop Michael off in the roadwork-nexus surrounding Haymarket station. And then the struggle to negotiate the roadworks again and return the car. But I'll spare you that part.
You can see our route at http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=2443149 .
¹ Hunting eagles would be seriously illegal, and would probably carry jail time.
I hadn't realised how comparatively easy it is to access the Highlands from Glasgow by public transport until I moved to Edinburgh: while the situation there isn't ideal (no trains on a Sunday, for instance), it's far better than over here. Consequently, we hired a car for the day. Except I couldn't find any car hire places in town that were open on a Saturday night, and had to schlep out to the airport. And then negotiate the maze of twisty roadworks that central Edinburgh has become as a result of the construction of the tram system. I don't drive often, and one of the major reasons for that is that I really don't enjoy it. Oh well...
The day itself was pretty good. After some initial faff collecting Silas, we left the city at first light, and parked at the Dalmunzie Hotel shortly after ten. The guidebook and the signs said that we needed to secure permission to park there, but the hotel was closed for the Christmas period; after a bit of looking around, we found something that was presumably the owners' quarters, and got the nod from the teenage girl of the house. Then off into the snow. Yes, snow in the UK - the car park was at just over 300m, and we were in snow the whole day. We headed off down the path, and had just crossed over a river when we met a posh (but extremely friendly) guy in a pickup truck, who turned out to be the estate owner. We met him again several times over the next couple of hours: he was going back and forth clearing the path of snow so that he could get his clients up it for eagle hunting the next day. Hunting hares with eagles, that is¹ - though apparently domesticated eagles aren't up to much as hunting animals. They don't have the fitness of wild eagles, and can't fly uphill, so if they miss the hare first time (as usually happens), they just land and wait to be carried back up to the top of the hill.
We hit low cloud at about 600m, and from then on everything was white: white cloud above, white snow below. Visibility was between 30 and 50 metres. Fortunately, we'd chosen a route without any steep cliffs on either side. At nearly 2pm, Silas called out that he could see the trig point on the summit, and we all hurried towards the vague shape in the mist.
"That's not a trig point."
"What is it?"
"It's a fencepost."
"No it isn't. What is it really?"
"I'm telling you, it's a fencepost. I can tell by the pixels, and from having seen many ice-covered fenceposts in my time."
It was at this point that we spotted the real trig point at the edge of visibility, and hastened over. Michael had brought tea, and Silas had brought whisky to celebrate. Both were extremely welcome. Photos were taken. Then we headed back down - we'd initially planned to carry on to Carn an Righ, but with only a little over two hours of daylight remaining, the decision to go down was obvious. Our route had wandered a bit on the way up, so (over my objections) we headed off on a bearing rather than retracing our steps, but we obviously need to work on our compass technique because we soon found ourselves on a slope that was far too steep and realised that we'd left the ridge. We took out our crampons; Michael's sandwiches took this opportunity to make a break for freedom and skidded off down the valley and out of sight. I hope livestock don't eat them: the swine fever epidemic a couple of years ago was probably caused by a pig eating a hiker's discarded sandwich.
We were back down to the valley floor shortly after four: it was definitely getting dark by this time, and we walked back along the valley in the gathering twilight. The cloud had started to lift a bit, though, and we got some idea of the views we might have seen. Next time. Not being idiots, we had torches, but weren't especially planning on using them. Fortunately, we didn't have to: we reached the car just before five, while there was still a tiny bit of light to see by. Overall, we'd walked about 14km and gained 700m of height, in six and a half hours: not exactly great speed, but in light of the conditions, I think we did OK.
A change of socks, an indifferent meal at the Spittal of Glenshee pub (with Attack of the Clones on in the background), and then the long drive back to Edinburgh along winding dark country roads, pausing to drop Michael off in the roadwork-nexus surrounding Haymarket station. And then the struggle to negotiate the roadworks again and return the car. But I'll spare you that part.
You can see our route at http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=2443149 .
¹ Hunting eagles would be seriously illegal, and would probably carry jail time.
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