Col's Blog

I'd managed to get a couple of tickets to see Andy Kirkpatrick's lecture at Pitlochry this afternoon, so Ross came up to see him too. First though we decided to go and investigate the crags at Dunkeld. I met Ross at the carpark and we spent a pleasant couple of hours wandering through the forest and stareing up at routes in the rain. We ahd hoped to maybe do a route, but the mist was down and the rock was damp and 'orrible...  Defo be back though when its dry!

Andy Kirkpatrick was as good as before (ie feckin brill) and I bought his dvd Cold Haul after.

Took a nice wee walk up Schiehalion today. Well, apart from the fact I was wearing a full winter 'sack for the first time in a year and a half...  Feck it was heavy...

The mist was well down for the top half of the hill which made route finding a little interesting. Luckily I'd started late, so others had broken trail. However, some of them appeared to have wandered onto the north face. Feck knows what became of them... I did make it to the top. Had I not been there before, I probably wouldn't have been sure if I'd made it or not though!

Sunday morning and it was up early and away to Clashgour to do some trails with Calum.

I arrived at 8:45 to find Calum still abed. He and Koa had been out on the pish and hadn't got back till near 5 in the morning...   It took Calum a while to get himself together. Eventually he did though and out came the Africa Twin, which was almost as reluctant to get going as he had been, requiring a jump start to get going.

We started by heading up the Glen for a couple of miles, taking in a few river crossings en route, till we arrived at a large snow patch. At this point Calum decided it was time to turn back as he didn't think the Africa Twin would manage the snow. The river crossings on this bit were a bit interesting for me as I hadn't done any for a long number of years...

After this bit, we headed back down the Glen to Forrest Lodge , then back up the main Glen on an Argo trail. Lots more river crossings, some of which involved crashing our way through the ice covering! It now became clear that the Africa Twin had reached its limit, whereas my little light125 was finding the terain fairly easy, so we headed back to the house once again and Calum got his Gas Gas trials bike out... After a bit of playing around we headed out the old military road accross to the WHW. From there we took the trail followed by the 6 day trialists. Man it was hard. Calum cruised it, but I found it hard work. Came of twice when the front wheel got stuck in big holes :ooo Bloody good though. I was grinning like a mad eegit all the way...

Sat morn, crystal clear, Carn Liath pure white in the kitchen window. Just had to :))

Beautiful crisp neve most of the way, bloody strong wind though, to the extent that the wrong body parts were getting frost nipped till I got the salopettes out :o

Then I met the lovely Michele for dinner...