Lochnagar
9 January 2011

Fourteen Club members and a two man film crew braved the cold and headed up Glen Muick on Sunday morning.

At 9:15 the presidents party of 13 headed across the glen to Allt na Giubhsaich path. Eilidh followed with the intention of going as far up as she wanted to before returning to the loch-side. Another member, independent of the group, Neil Bannerman passed us as we ascended to the col.

Setting off towards the Allt na Giubhsaich path

Anne and Roberta ascending the Allt na Giubhsaich path

After just over an hour we reached the cut-off path up to the col below Meikle Pap, by this time the wind had increased considerably and fresh snow and spindrift were causing a problem. After ascending the path for 10 mins we stopped to try to get some shelter for a brew but the wind made this a very uncomfortable stop and at this point the film crew and Anne and Roberta headed back down. The ‘picked up’ Eilidh on the way and spent the rest of the day with the film crew walking round the frozen loch.

Heading towards the col

The weather begins to clear

The eleven remaining in the group forged onwards and in another 30 minutes stopped for an early lunch as the weather cleared.

We reached the col in another 20 minutes to see that the loch in the corrie was completely iced over. So were the slopes of the Ladder so crampons of various type and vintage were donned and the Ladder ascended.

The corrie with a frozen Loch

Crossing the col

Donning crampons

The Ladder, onwards and upwards

Alistair and Hannah ascending the Ladder

The cliffs from the top of the Ladder

Derek and Alistair on the plateau

Once on the plateau the group decided to split with myself, Claire, Alistair, Viktor and Hannah heading down into the Glas Allt corrie and the other six, Derek, Ken, Ian, Graeme, Gordon and Alessandro continuing to the summit.

The intrepid six head up to the summit

The descending group had about an hour start on the summit group so we took our time and Claire and Hannah practised ice axe arrests and we all took loads of photos as we wandered down.

Descending towards the corrie of the Glas Allt

Some ice axe arrest practice

Down towards Loch Muick

Descending the Glas Allt 'path'

The summit party took another 30 minutes to get to the top and after a quick turnaround headed down Glas Allt.

Leaving the summit

Ian with the summit to the right

As the lead group sat having a second lunch in the sunshine the other group came into view well up the corrie.

The descent of the path down by the waterfall took longer than usual due to the amount of snow and ice on the surface. There were great views in the late afternoon sunshine of, the also frozen, Loch Muick and its surrounds.

Loch Muick comes into view

Heading down

The waterfall

East across Loch Muick

At 2.45pm we were at the loch-side where we were joined by Anne and Roberta. The film crew headed up to catch the other party coming down the path.

West towards the sunset from the end of the loch

Almost there !!

Local wildlife

By 4pm we were all at the minibus and after ‘freshening up’ we headed slowly up the icy road to the Loch Kinord Hotel for stovies, tea and cake. This proved to be a very fine end to a challenging, but very rewarding, day.