Having enjoyed the luxury of a warm and dry house, we were full of excitement to try some of the fantastic ridges described in Dan Bailey's
Scotland's Mountain Ridge's so we sat and looked at the forecast. The forecasters could dress it up in any which way, but it looked minging, with rain up to summit levels and wind to boot. So we spent a couple of days on the west coast partaking in what can only be described as avalanche safari walks, with us getting a good inspection of a massive slide on the steep north slopes of An Gearanach in the Mamores.
The slide started at the rocky knoll in the top right of the photo with a head wall depth of around 8 feet and carrying boulders the size of fridge/freezers.
The forecasted low winds never seemed to come around keeping most of the ski resorts closed apart form one... Glenshee, so we headed for the east coast and the southern Cairngorm's. The weather wasn't all that much better however, we did get a bothy night out with some calmer conditions.
Walking into the spectacularly placed Corrour bothy from Bramaur side gives the Lairig Ghru a truely remote Scottish feel. That is until you spend the night with 5 snoring strangers. The conditions we found were just as tough as over west, loads of snow and not all that firm. Wandering back to the van via Derry lodge opened my eyes to the seamlessly endless possibilities of wild walking from this corner of the Cairngorm's.
A week of damp, cold kit in the van started to add up to an almightly smell. So we made the plan to head back and plan our next adventure and hope that we might have Scottish weather like last year still to come.
