A group of five of us set off for a bothy night whilst trying to bag some of the highest hills in the country. Start point was the sugar bowl car park, cairngorm.
The weather was to be fine, with a variable cloud base, a bit windy. the following evening it was to turn, so we knew we needed to be off the mountains before then.
Route, through the chalamain gap, crossing the lairig ghru and up the long northern flank of Breariach. Breaking trail from the lg we realised that the intended route may just not be feasable. Summiting Braeriach after five hours due to someone in our group struggling with fitness, they didnt want to turn back to we pushed on, sunshine breaking through the clouds every so often. The cornices were the biggest I had ever seen around every edge. Darkness fell by the time the top of the Angels peak was reached, but the cloud dropped giving the most stunning inversion by moonlight across the entire cairngorm range, a view that will stick in my mind forever. I had hoped to get the Devils point too, but time was very late so negotiating the corniced corrie rim down towards the corrour bothy was more important, and very nerve wracking. Huge snow hung over my head in my torch light, and waist deep, very bad condition snow all the way down to the bothy. 11.5 hours. 8 people and a dog in the bothy that night. at least it was cosy!
Day 2. Cairn a Mhaim was the first objective, low cloud base (and unknown to us a much worse forecast than when we left the day before) we set off early. Hoping to get across Ben Macdui and to the ptarmigan for the last train down. What followed was the scariest day I have had on the mountains.
White out conditions saw Ken and myself doing all the navigating as we the only ones confident enough to do it, from the top of cairn a mhain onwards. We avoided going to near the tailors burn area as we knew it wasnt safe, and with rising winds made the top of macdui. getting off that mountain and across the plateau took hours, complete white out and winds gusting so severely that all five of us resorted to crawling. At one point a gust hit us so hard we couldnt see each other and I am fairly sure in knocked me out for a few minutes. the snow was still deep, the winds pushing us towards the lairig ghru which the slope near that was iced, three rucksacks wee frozen, and unable to open the clips to get inside for headtorches, so 2 between 5 had to do. The time taken was 13 hours back to the ski centre, we descended down the west side of coire an lochan after the hardest nav I have ever done, and genuinely think that we were going to die out there that night. the slope down started to crack and windslab avalanche making descent difficult and dangerous too. Upon crossing the ski slope to crawl back up to the car park , where we had managed a message to someone to come get us, we were blown down it, and could not fight the ferrocity of the wind to cross directly.
This trip scared me, I navigated well, and stayed alive (obviously). It was after this I felt that if i could nav in this, i could nav in anything and therefore was competent enough to do my ml training. I seriously do not wish to repeat this experience, and have a healthy respect for the wind.
Area :
The Cairngorms
The Cairngorms are ‘a little piece of the arctic in Scotland’ according to the SMC Munros Guide and the area contains many of the tallest peaks in the East Highlands. Ben Macdui (1309m), Cairn Gorm (1244m) and Braeriach (1296) are probably three of the better known and the whole area is full of steep corries and high plateaux. Access to the mountains is typically from Aviemore or Braemar.
