Belter of a day.
Headed up windy ridge with the group. Due to increased in angle, amount of energy required one student struggled to breathe and panicked. Calmed her down, talked about breathing and walking pace and style. As moved up talked about oreographic lapse rate and why the snow in the area was cold and dry and not good for snowballs. Distracted her and slowed her down, she was fine after
At Ptarmigan took bearing and handrailed fence to the highest ski lift. Took bearing to Cnap Coire na Ciste. Found that came off slightly into a bowl and used slope angle to understand where I was which was good. Explored some snow holes which here fantastic and talked about why they were used, how long it would take etc.
From there dog legged back to ski lift before bearing to cairn.
Annoyingly, I worked on a 1:25 and completed metres BEFORE realisation hit that I had switched to 1:40k which made sense given the contour shapes around me. This was all in the white room, at first was dissorientating but I had a fantastic time navigating in it and my bearing and poor vis nav was absolutely spot on. After realising 1:40k my pacing was also spot on.
From there, spoke about the weather system and Erkenhawser / Grivel and crampons / style of clothing which I find fascinating so related this to the group.
Bore down to 1141m and slowly picked the way down to coire snachdta where I talked about how in wales they are Cywms, in Scotland Coires and France Cirques but all formed by the same way.
Back to van and a hot chocolate!
Really enjoyable time.
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.
