Back in the Pentlands

To be honest part of this post is just to ensure that I put up at least as many posts this year - 79 - as I did last year.

But I didn't need an excuse to get out. I wanted to end the year with a walk in the hills. I headed up to Hillend but the road was blocked and nothing was going up past the Steading towards the ski centre so I just carried on, past Flotterstone towards Silverburn. I turned the car round and parked in the slushy layby.


I was going to head up Scald Law, a familiar path. Across the field the snow was hard and shallow and an easy walk with the usual bogs hard and covered. It was when I went through the kissing gate at Charlie's Loup that things got harder. The snow was getting ever deeper, eventually over my knees with each step. I was hard work and I wasn't in the mood for it.

Someone had been up here in skis and it was interesting to see the tracks, to see how they were moving, sometimes in parallel tracks, sometimes in fishbone prints.

It was nice simply to be outside in the cold and snow, although the camera doesn't cope well with so much whiteness.

I turned back for the car. Back here for a mug of tea.

Slideshow of the trip south

A few more photos from last week's drive

West Kirby

Just a few crap photos ( I really need to invest in a proper camera) from a pleasant walk yesterday with my parents along the front at West Kirby. North Wales was hazy in the distance but Hilbre island(s) was looking deceptively close as it always does.




There is history here. As we walk we talk of the past. We went by a house in which my Mum had her 21st birthday party....53 years ago. When I was a child we walked out to Hilbre as a family. Coming back the tide was beating us and my Dad carried me as he clambered over rocks covered in barnacles, cutting into his feet. It is a place pregnant with memories. A poignant thought now that my Dad's own memory is fading.

The Wirral is too busy and I would not want to live there.....but there is familiarity of a kind, although now I am a stranger to so much. A stranger to many.

A drive south

I went south for Christmas last week. I set off early on the Wednesday morning - about 7:45am - because I wanted to get down in time to go to a hospital appointment with my Dad. As soon as I got out of the front door of the flat I was a bit worried - there was deep snow and it was still coming down. It was beautiful but sadly I am now of an age when the wonder of snow is tinged by concern at its danger and the delays that that it could cause.

I packed the car and headed off. The main road was clear and safe until just outside of the city when it got nasty - lots of snow and no grit. I put Radio Scotland on and the repeated message was that you shouldn't go on the roads around Edinburgh. At one point a gritter went past but it was only ploughing, not gritting.

It took me about 2 hours to get to Biggar - about 30 miles - through lots of slippy snow. A few times I considered turning back but there was nowhere convenient to stop and turn - I was heading a convoy of cars creeping along.

I saw a few abandoned cars and at one point there was a big hold up as people were pushing cars that had got stuck. On a several occasions the road got very slippy and the car was sliding around. It is scary to feel the thing sliding away under you. For a while I was going from layby to layby hoping things would get better. I was pretty relaxed though with a car full of supplies - stove, sleeping bag etc. Not that I would really have wanted to use them.

Eventually I got to Biggar after which the A 702 was clear - it had been ploughed and gritted well. Then the M74 and M6 and everything was fine.



The Howgills were particularly impressive, plastered with snow in front of a blue sky.


I got to my parents' in time to go to the hospital with them too.

Christmas

That is it for a few days. I'm off to battle snow on the M6. Have a good one

Ben A'an above the mist

I'll write more later, but I just wanted to get these photos up.

Ok. I took a day off. The weather this week had been fantastic and luckily it held. I was tired though and the prospect of a really early morning to get somewhere distant and white was not attractive. So where to go. I thought about Glen Shee and some of the Corbetts there, but in the end I decided on somethimg familiar. There was fog in Edinburgh and I thought that it would maybe be pretty somewhere a bit more pointy.

The drive up to Callandar was through thick fog, slow going. It was lifting a bit by the time I got to the car park at the bottom of Ben A'an. PTC had been here recently and reading his post I realised I'd not been here since January.

My normal aim - monitoring fitness - is to get to the top in 30 minutes. This time it was 34. I stopped for photos a few times but even so I've lost a bit....

Going up it was nice to clear the mist and look over to Ben Venue, silhouetted above the fog.

Then on top it was superb. The prospect to the north was wonderful. The mist was sitting on Loch Katrine but above the hills were clear and snowy. The Arrochar Alps were clear with the Cobbler looking all pointy and dramatic. Ben Lomond peeped out from behind Venue. Round to the Northwest were Ben Moe and Stobinnean, distinctive twins, plastered in snow.

It was warm on the top and I soaked up the winter sun, chatting to a fella who was taking panoramic photos on a big film camera. I could have stayed for hours. Each direction in which I looked had something new to see, some bit of mist clinging to a hill.

Gradually the Loch cleared a bit and the shape of the shore and the islands came through. Glorious

I came down a different way dropping down a muddy "path" to the shores of the Loch and walking back through freezing mist to the car.

A wonderful day. Something familiar but with views that were so different from those I'd seen there before.

Pentlands

A Sunday afternoon stroll past the Glencorse reservoir in the Pentlands.

Glorious, with the sun descending behind the hills at 1pm! It is winter.