Raeburn Hut Weekend
11th - 13th February 2011
By Brent
The new car park right next to the Raeburn Hut was full on Friday night and club members also stayed in the Potteries Bunk House and at Inverpattack House. In all 19 keen folk turned out, some for the second weekend running.
The Raeburn Hut weekend (Feb 11-13) centred around two days of Avalanche Awareness training with MCofS training officer Heather Morning at Glenmore Lodge. The Saturday group had sunny but then hard (not unlike the Buddy weekend) conditions.
It was not so much a case of digging an avalanche pit as drilling or blasting one. Accordingly the group had to climb high onto the plateau find enough softer snow for a proper pit. This made for a long day with Heather, Lynn, Nicky and Tony lasting the full course to the Cairngorm summit, before returning down the empty piste at the close of play.
Keith did a long solo walk, while Bern joined Sue on foot near Loch Etricht.
Others went west, expecting a long carry to an icy hillside for more ski crampon practice. The group of Clare C, Sandie, Brent, Lindy, Sarah, Cathie, Caroline, Tobi, Dougie, Jan S and David Baker were pleasantly surprised. After two changes to plans caused by road works and a swollen stream, a ski ascent to Munro height was actually made. Parking at Roughburn, west of the Creag Meagaidh car park, a 400 vertical metres ascent on foot led to roughly 649 metres of skinning to the south summit of Bein a’Chaorainn with an excellent descent on soft snow.
Cathie shadow skiing ...
The sun came out to play and there was little wind. The sun shining on Sandie ...
Back at the hut, there was a beehive of activity with well directed communal preparation resulting in Sarah’s exotic starter, Keith’s wonderful multi-faceted main course and Bern’s scrumptious pudding. 11/10 catering without question.
Sunday morning was Team 2 doing the avalanche course. The warm comfortable illustrated lecture with coffee was followed by outdoor transceiver practice in a howling downpour. Glenmore Lodge now have an avalanche park with transceivers buried in wood chips where multiple burials can be practiced easily. In the final test, Caroline, Brent, Tobi, Jan, Lindy and Bern, took less than 8 minutes to find 4 multiple burials. It may sound good but it leaves only 7 minutes to dig out the buried four. Still the main lesson of the day was to avoid being hit, which is more often than not down to sensible route choice and general good judgment including knowing when not to go out.
Saturday’s sunshine had long been blown away but it was possible to skin from the car park into Coire n’Sneachda because of the new drifted snow. The group went up the hill to look for evidence of the slides that had happened the day before. The headwall of Coire Cas had slid, as had the Goat Track, with a helicopter rescue required for the latter - see BBC News report and SAIS blog.
Skiing up in limited visibility but on safe ground, the group encountered hordes of folk streaming off the hill. There were reports of slides in several of the classic climbing gullies. A careful line was taken in the Coire but it was impossible to see far enough to view the slides. However, a lot was learnt in situ about reading terrain, finding a safe skinning line and avoiding exposure to possible slides. While the ice had softened, there was very little place actually to dig a proper pit. The visibility and wind weren’t wonderful, so the group skinned up to the ridge and dropped down to descend along the piste where both Tobi and Lindy both performed amazing feats in the terrain park. Whether intentional of not, is for them to say.
The club’s day was not taken up entirely by character building training in adverse conditions. Some Sunday shopping was undertaken with rumours of a carpet shop visit circulating.
Brent