Misty slopes of An Socach
Lucky old me out on Sunday with two friends. It was our intention to do two hills in Glen Shee starting near the ski centre. Now there is a reason why the ski centre is there, and that's more chance of snow! We had checked the forecast beforehand and it looked good, but not so when we got there and it never did clear all day.
The hills in the Glen Shee area are round and rolling, and in bad weather not all that easy to navigate. With -2C showing in the car, we decided to leave Tolmount and Tom Buidhe for another day and headed towards the Baddoch area near Braemar.
You walk up the glen following Baddoch Burn for about 5-6km then up on to the bealach and head west to the summit. We met quite a few people coming down off the ridge, and they were all saying it was really windy and cold, even though as we walked to the summit it did not seem too bad.
On the way back along the ridge to our descent point the weather fairly came in and it was cold and windy... Brrrrr
The most dangerous bit was coming off the ridge and on to the icy path. I have bruised knees to show where I fell, so we ended up with our crampons on, until we got further down the glen.
Walking in the winter takes so much longer with ploughing through snow and being careful on icy ground but it did allow us to see the sun setting over the glen.
A good day, but hard work and navigation had to be spot on - just as well there were three of us and not just me!
