Glen Feshie Weekend
4th - 6th February 2011
Part 1 by Katherine.
On the Thursday and Friday my work colleagues kept asking 'are you really off skiing this weekend?' accompanied by dubious looks, and kept pointedly referring to the fact that their weekend plans involved being cosy and warm indoors. Their comments didn’t seem entirely unjustified seeing as the building was shuddering in the wind, and the rain was lashing against the window pains. But Lynn's final email before the weekend said she was optimistic that we'd get out skiing, and I was looking forward to my first weekend away with the club.
In fact, the weather was pretty good. On Saturday morning we were all up bright and early, and at the Cairngorm ski centre before the lifts were even open. We divided into a faster and slower group and off we set. I'd been curious at the mention of skiing mixed with heather the night before, but soon found out what it meant.
We managed to ski all the way from the ski centre to Lurcher's Gully, but had to negotiate patches of heather and one river crossing across big snowy bolders along the way.
As we got higher, the snow got deeper and the view back down the valley opened out. We had a quick stop for snacks and then headed steadily up hill. It was hard work, with flurries of snow and wind, but a beautiful wintry light, and we were rewarded with good views at the top.
Some of us decided to head down from there (due to boot troubles). But just as we were about to set off, after sorting out our skins etc, we saw some very professional looking skiers heading down towards us.
The faster group and the rest of our party had all turned back due to ice on the plateau, so by chance we all met up at the top of Lurcher’s Gully after all. A good chance for a group photo in the sunshine, which had just broken through the clouds.
It was fun skiing back down, although quite challenging for me on the icy, bumpy snow. We all congregated lower down for lunch, before some folk headed back up Lurcher’s for another go, an the rest of us headed in the direction of home.
It was still early, so Lynn, Tess and I decided to add in an extra excursion into Coire an t-Sneachda which looked very dramatic covered in snow, with its rock buttresses.
It was a good experiment in the pros and cons of skins versus fish scales, with Tess (fish scales) fairing better at times and Lynn and me (skins) at others. After a bit of an adventure skiing after a very-fast-moving-in-the-wind escaped head band, we reached the coire. We had another snack-stop (the highlight was some delicious home-made flapjack) and watched all the various ice-climbers and ‘winter skills’ course participants doing their thing - I’ve never seen quite so many people practicing ice-axe arrests in one place!
A great day was followed by a very welcome and tasty dinner, ably cooked by Tracy, Christine, Tess, and helpers, with wine and conversation all round. A great introduction to the club, and a great trip. Everyone was very friendly and welcoming and I'll definitely be doing another one.
Part 2 by Alys:
On the Sunday we tried to stick to Lynn’s regime of ‘up and out by 7.30’ but we slipped a little and ended up parking further down the car park than the day before. Everyone except for a group of three walkers had decided to skin up Cairngorm, along the ‘day lodge piste’ and the ‘M2’.
We immediately split into a couple of groups; one being myself, Jan and Colin trying to keep up with Simon out ahead. However the lure of tea and coffee in the warm Ptarmigan station meant that we lost Simon who was already on his way up Cairngorm.
After being shouted at for bringing our rucksacks in the café we started up again and met Simon coming down. The whole of the mountain seemed to be covered in hard snow and ice so we appreciated our ski crampons.
It was windy and cold on the summit so we didn’t hang around long before skiing down to the col at the top of the Ptarmigan bowl. We met the other group skinning up the way we were coming down. Fancying some more downhill skiing we went right from the col, past a woman digging a snow hole by herself and into a long traverse to get over to Loch Avon.
The snow was much softer on that side and I struggled to remember how to turn on non-ice. We decided not to ski all the way down to the lake, the skin up looked plenty long enough already, but it was a beautiful spot so we stopped and ate lunch before starting the skin back up.
The slopes we’d traversed over on the way down seemed much steeper on ascent and some kick turning was required. Unfortunately this proved to be a dangerous move on the rock hard snow when Jan’s ski slipped and he had to use a ski pole arrest to avoid sliding into boulders. Luckily he’d been practicing by demonstrating earlier in the day. Back on the pistes we enjoyed some lovely snow back to the car park.
Photos by Alys, Lynn and Jan S.