Killin - Beinn Heasgarnich
15th April
To borrow an expression from Clare...."The omens were not good".
After the fantastic snow of the previous weekend, it had been warm, windy and raining this week, and no new snow.
Not helpful weather for the thin cover of recent snow that was left...
On the drive up, Ben Ledi was bare of snow, and all of the Killin hills visible through the mist looked quite devoid of snow. Various text messages of "Oh dear..!" seemed to be a common theme..
That didn't put Lynn off though, and despite all odds, we went up to check it out. Despite the downpour, and the fact that I sensed Caroline would rather be sitting in a warm pub somewhere - we donned the ski gear in the driving rain, off we set...
Never having been to this hill before, one of the benefits that was quickly apparent was that it wasn't too far to the top, and most of it can be skiied from the car. The carpark itself is around 500m - Never a bad thing in poor weather.
(However thin or contrived it may appear at first, there is always a way to link patches of snow together...).
Upwards we went, and even met a few fellow ski tourers on their way back down. Morales lifted by their favourable comments - such as "you better hurry up before it all melts.." - we hastened upwards.
Eventually the summit was reached by some nice big bowls that gave a good ski on the way back down. My overall thoughts were that this would be an even more fantastic hill given decent visibility...
From the summit, the compass was needed to work out the descent line through the mists... We thought we'd try plan a) - the northern ridge we'd seen from the road, as it looked like quite a long ski down.
But the descent proved a bit too interesting for the conditions, with steep drops on the eastern sides lurking in the whiteout, and exposed rocks on the west. (With about a 5 metre wide safe corridoor of snow to ski down the middle). Poor old rosie fell over the eastern cornice and slid a good 20 feet down before we decided that probably plan b) was called for..
Plan b) was back up to the top (Does it count as 2 munros?) and a descent back down the way we'd come up.
Pretty good skiing for most of the way down, with Lynn showing some good recovery skiing. Proving that you only need one ski if you know what you're doing.
All in all, a good day. Thanks for dragging us up there, Lynn.
Craig Smith.