Culdees Weekend
Friday 22nd - Sunday 24th January
by Lynn, with photos by Lynn, Cathie and Gianni
On Saturday there were two skiing groups. The first group elected to go up Meall Greigh from the hostel, which involved a short walk through the forest prior to getting to skiable snow on the open hill. Some skied as far as cloud level, while Pam, Jan and Bern continued on in decreasing visibility, stopping just short of the summit (the munro having been bagged before). All enjoyed a ski down a pleasantly gentle slope on lovely soft snow.
Meanwhile, the other group (which contained the photographers), made an attempt on Ben Lawers. We began this trip a few hundred metres below the car park, having extracted one of the cars from the ditch it had slid into off the icy road.
Cathie initially battled to get her map into its case with the wind blowing it around. Fortunately, new member David kindly came to the rescue.....
At last we found some snow and it’s time to put the skins on..... and Cathie checks that map again.....
Time for a short break
The views were beautiful.....
.....until we headed into the clouds
We made it to Beinn Ghlas, and decided this was far enough given the visibility, and gingerly headed off down the hill, wondering how steep this slope was going to be.....
Finally we could see again!
And in usual club style, we eeked out every last bit of snow on the way down!
As usual the chefs and helpers excelled themselves producing a lovely meal. Tales of daring doo were exchanged, songs were sung, all had a merry time, and Alan licked his lips at the prospect of some Highland Park whisky coming out!
On Sunday we all went skiing again in three groups, one from the hostel, one up from Glen Lyon.
And the remainder heading back up into the cloud to ski Beinn Ghlas again as they had liked it so much on Saturday (and it was handy for the pub on the return)!