Festive snow sports ...

Had a pile of wee trips over the festive ...mainly on the nordic skis around East Renfrewshire and the Lomondside but squeezed in four new Corbetts.

Headed north on Boxing Day with the plan of an "easy single" above Loch Leven in the shape of Mam na Gualainn at 796m above sea level. Like so many of the Corbetts, I had driven past it many times without actually thinking about wandering up the hill. Left the car and started up the hard snow looking forward to the prospect of crampons further up .... The SMC guide book had warned that the path was indistinct and under snow it wasn't wrong. Sadly, the hard snow gave way to deep powder just above the radio mast and progress slowed up. I arrived at the belach tired but with only 1.5km to the summit reckoned it wouldn't take long - in fact, it took the best part of an hour to wade through the snow. At the trig point however, the effort was well worth it - cracking views back to the Coe and over the Mamores. Thankfully, the descent was easy with a jump / run thing working well.

Drove round to the Fort and killed a couple of hours in the shops and MacDonalds. Treated myself to a wee Black Diamond snow shovel (which came in very useful over the next few days). Met up with Stuart "Shamir" Ferguson before heading round to Roybridge for the night. Late that evening I was considering options for the next day - had a ramble down the start of the Glen Roy road ...it looked dodgy with hard packed snow / ice tracks and snow at the sides !

Next morning I was at a bit of a loss what to do. Was thinking that an easy option of a Corbett with a main road start was in order when I heard about the death of Knut Haugland on the radio. Knut was not only the radio operator on the Kon Tiki expedition but also one of the members Norwegian Resistnace in the 2nd World War. During the initial Operation Grouse and the subsequent operations he helped end the development of an atomic bomb by Hilter and the Nazi regime. In short, without the bravery of Knut and his fellow Norwegians, the world today might have been a very different place. In his memory, I opted for a more challenging day and dumped the car in a layby / deep snowdrift got the nordic skis on and headed down Glen Roy - the revised target for the day was Ben Iaruinn at 896m. Not long after leaving the road, the slope became too steep for my skis (I currently do not own a set of skins for them) so got them on the side of the pack and continued up past the parallel roads and onto the summit ridge where the skis were back on. The last 1km was a case of carefully handrailing Coire nan Eun before reaching the trig point. Had a brief stop for a bite and reflected on the world today a bit before skiing back across to the steep slopes and a swift drop back to the road. Back at the car, I had to do a bit of digging before tyres met road and I was able to get back out to the A82. Heading south, I was glad of my choice of day.

Next trip was a night ascent ! Made some plans with Alan Kelly to take advantage of the full moon and low temparture to head south to the Greenwell of Scotland and an ascent of Cairnsmore of Carsphrain at 797m. We left the car around 7pm ...in a bit of a snow shower. Not a bad one, but snowing none the less. The track was intially well packed but as we continued under Willieanna and Dunpol, we were back into deep powder. Over the last couple of winters, I have come to note that maybe snowshoes would get more use than crampons ! Eventually, we reached the boundary wall and turned to the north east and into a very cold wind. With sprindrift everywhere, I stopped to get my ski googles on - unfortunately, Alan didn't have any with him. We found a half buried trig point gave it a nod then turned back down the slope. We took some shelter and grabbed a quick drink / bite to eat before continuing down. With the build up of snow, going downhill was not much easier than going up. After fighting through tussocks hidden under snow we finally reached the track and in time the car. Both of us were fairly tired but happy to have been out on the hill. I dropped Alan back at the house and got home to Busby just after 00:30.

No better way to start the year than with a wee hill trip - continuing the theme of turning the world upside down I headed south (mountains alway feel as though they should be north of Glasgow) with Alan Anderson and his nephew Matthew. With dodgy road conditions continuing, we chosen venue was Hart Fell just outside Moffat. The M74 was down to a single lane ...and we were probably the 2nd car to venture along the A708 ! We made for the broad shoulder which leads up above Cappelgill past the 724m top and to Swatte Fell. Once again the snow condtions made things heavy going ...especially for Matthew who was on his first winter trip. The biting easterly wind had scoured some of the snow which was sitting in pockets. We made slow progress towards Hart Fell itself but above Falcon Craig, Alan and Matthew made the sensible decision to bail out and start heading back down. I continued on against the wind and stopped only to get a trig point photograph before catching the boys up.

A nice end to the year ...and a nice start to 2010