Saturday 24th January, Lochnagar

This weekend I am in Braemar with Rick hoping for good snow conditions for some winter mountaineering. Our route today started from the car park at Loch Muick up to the main path towards the col beside Meikle Pap. We had great visibility on our walk in with the early morning sun shining on the hills. The wind was a strong southerly and lots of snow was being blown about as we walked in.

From the col we had a good view of the crags and gullies on Lochnagar and there appeared to be some very large cornices present at the top of most routes this combined with a avalanche forecast of Cat 3 on all N facing slopes encouraged us to change plan and we carried on up the hill following the corrie rim towards the summit cairn.

The cairn was covered in some amazing rime ice formations and we managed to find some shelter from the winds to enjoy a quick brew.

Our Plan B for the day which had been developed the previous evening involved us snow shoeing over the plateau and following the line of the Glas Ault burn down to the waterfalls. We had a pleasant afternoon playing around on the snow shoes and watching other walkers sink up to their knees in drfting snow.

It had been well worth the extra effort in carrying them up hill today.

We descended down the line of the waterfalls which were partially frozen and joined the jeep track near the lodge at the far end of the Loch Muick. Before heading back to the car park at the other end of the loch.