The Saturday Jaunt this week was deliberately focused as far east as possible. After being defeated by the depth of snow on Ben Tirran we had been watching the weather patterns carefully. The webcams at Glenshee confirm that the further west you go, the snowier the weather gets, but that the extreme east has been "missing out". Now I'm a fan of a snowy walk as much as the next man but when it tickles your belly button things are getting just too extreme.
So Mount Battock it was to be, GM/ES-032, NO58, TP0667. The starting point was by the phone box (non-working, I should report it!) near Milden Lodge.
The OS map shows 3 good paths and the plan was to use do the clockwise loop via Wester Cairn as described on
Walk Highlands.
If only life were that simple.
When we got there we found that the hillside was crisscrossed with new tracks to take lazy English in cars out to kill things and from the outset we were having to take out the map and compass to work out where to go. Still the local natives seemed merely curious
And the weather was very kind, so kind that fleeces went into the rucksacks and I (temporarily) wished I put on a lighter coat.
The track rose inexorably upwards and was quite steep. Due to there being around about five times the number of tracks as shown on the map and the very featureless terrain we ended up on the top marked Allrey a bit further west than intended. So from there we ended up heading a bit west as the terrain looked easier
And yes, this is the easier terrain, we were soon above the snow line and we came across a few challenging patches. Ploughing through one of these can put you past your waist, if you're lucky enough not to go right through into the stream underneath....
We became very aware that we'd made a good decision when looking west to the next ridge of hills the snow density was clearly much much greater.
Yet again we had to resort to compass bearings in this featureless landscape to convince ourselves where the summit actually was!
One of the reasons we took the route we did was that we thought we would have the benefit of a good track for walking on. Forgetting that such features make really good snow magnets
As we climbed past the 700m mark the views really opened up
Is this really the right way? Actually I'm trying to work out if we can avoid the first top and skirt around it.
But there was very little drop anyway, and just over the first top the actual summit came into view
Snow on the top was quite deep, and any idea of using the nice little cairn there for shelter had to go out of the window
Taking great care, because the top was pretty much a solid sheet of ice I got set up for the radio in the lee of the cairn.
So how did the radio bit go? Mixed. With no mobile signal we were relying on being found. With the REF contest in full swing there was precious little space on 40m. It seems that REF pay no attention to the IARU "preferred contest free zone", It's about time they made this compulsory, if IRTS and RSGB can enforce it for their 80m contests everyone else should to give non participants a chance. Still there is (nearly) always the WAB net and thankfully they were persevering today. Despite being part way through with someone else they kindly let me tag along with them and provided 17 qsos in 13 minutes, even mu0gsy managed to drag me out of the massive noise he must have been suffering. A lot of the other WAB regulars were also there, thanks guys.
After WAB I tried to find a slot, 7.118 is what I had announced so I had a go there. Up here the frequency wasn't too swamped but despite several minutes of calling got nothing but hoarse. It seems no-one was waiting for me there so I just gave up after 20 minutes and went to 14.285. Clearly this qrp frequency is monitored because straight away I had Pedro EA2CKX having missed my usual 40m tryst. Immediately after, an S2S with DL6FBK/P on dm/bw291 and immediately after that my old friend Manuel EA2DT who must surely be my most regular chaser! Soon after a surprise accent called quite strong at 57, KB1RJC and KB1RJD followed from NH. They observed I hadn't been "spotted" did I want to be? Yes please! After that it got a bit busy with a few regulars, RV9DC east of the Urals, OK1SDE and then a few more Russians and Spanish. SV3IEG, I don't often get Greece and LZ4GL, neither Bulgaria. And then followed another US with W1OW. Although signals were quite strong the run petered out after 11 minutes, but that was 29 contacts in 16 countries. By this time I had been operating 50 minutes (with 20 lost in the middle) and the cold was really starting to penetrate. The weather had been very mixed with complete blue sky at the start, it then going very black and a little light snow falling. Time to go!!!
A huge hit had been the flask of homemade chicken/veg/lentil soup that made the stay bearable!
As we started down the changing light became quite entrancing on the mountains to the west so, sorry for all the photos but it was just too nice. Looking towards Mount Keen which must be climbed some time we were glad we weren't there today, snow cover was much more serious there.
And another closer view of Mount Keen.
Looking back up towards the summit, we were now continuing the circuit and heading South, having arrived from the West
On the way down we came across the gamekeepers clearing patches of heather so the new growth can come, I've never seen this from close quarters before, it was fascinating seeing how quickly the fire can spread even on snow covered patches!
The smoke gave an interesting cast to the sky with the westerly mountains peeking through
And eventually we arrive down and a little detour to the "Caledonian" in Brechin seemed like an excellent idea. Thanks to the radio folks for making the radio bit productive, but I guarantee even if I wasn't doing that, I'd have gone anyway!! It was quite a hard walk, over 18kms with 700m of ascent, perfect!
Cheers
