Pages

Sunday 30 December 2012

Light my Fire


The Simply Epic team were out for some CPD & exercise and thought the Arrochar Alps a fine day out.   Parking in Glen Croe around 830am we were confronted by Noah and his Ark coming over the Rest and be Thankful...even he had his Goretex on.

Bill suited and booted
Some mild consideration of what to do saw us agree a plan to get out and do it...it was pouring and the wind was building but hey ho.

Five minutes up the hill, the rain stopped and the wind blew us up to Bealach a' Mhaim and we headed up Ben Narnain.   The snow level was down around 350m or thereby, building the higher we went.

Wind picking up towards summit ridge
At the Bealach, the wind was collecting and blowing plenty spindrift around, making walking and seeing problematic.   We pushed on despite increasing gusts (50-60mph maybe) and got to the summit over scoured slopes, tho the 'ice' was soft enough for a winter boot to cut in.

Walking out from the Bealach
A very quick summit pic and we were heading down, into the teeth of the wind, with spindrift doing its worst :(   Vis was poor and we erred on the sensible side of things and followed a bearing back to the Bealach in 15 mins then headed back to the car; 200m from the car the heavens opened up to give us a final soaking and test Bill's waterproof strategy to breaking point...new goretex all round?

All in, a great day in really challenging conditions - a true quality winter's mountain day to test us.   Hopefully we will be back to climbing VERY early in the New Year if conditions improve...fingers crossed.

No comments:

Post a Comment