Cairngorms 3. day

The trip, 3rd day:

Daily summary:
Distance: 11.71 km
Total elevation: 206.5 m
Maps (Ordnance Survey):

Today's short summary: escaping from the higher grounds towards more sheltered regions.

Yesterday evening the cold and wind froze my hands quickly, although I got a decent enough result setting up my tent on snow, especially that this was the first time I've done this for real. Because I buried the tent under snow along the edges the inner space became smaller and it wasn't spacious even to start with. Fortunately I didn't grow any taller as both my feet and head touched the canvas of the tent, also my backpack had to be left outside for the night. Both cooking and getting changed took place successfully inside the tiny tent.

In the morning putting on my frozen boots and gaiters was a 10 minutes long struggle. After I completed this task I emerged from the tent to wander over to the relatively bigger brook nearby... I mean river.

  

 This is nothing less than the river called Allt Coire an-Sneachda. It proved to perfectly sufficient to collect water from for my morning cooking.

 Fortunately I marked the tent, so I found my way back without any trouble. My tent stood only about 20 metres from the rather busy path, but I couldn't be seen thanks to the fog. I cooked my breakfast and put my staff away in a snowstorm that was getting serious so the whole process took me an hour to complete. Having done this I set off towards north where the lower lying wooded area could be found. Due to the fog visibility was only about 10 metres, so there was no point in staying at this altitude or climbing any higher.

 The whistling of the wind quite often got interrupted by the clucking of the red grouse. In this foggy weather they seem to have lost their usual shyness. 

The view

 

2 kms from my starting point I already got to the ski centre.

  

At this busy atmospheric place I dropped off my backpack and milled around while I had my morning tea as well.

 After this lovely rest I kept on walking north. My planned path closed due to a land slide and in the heavy snowing I didn't feel like checking if this was a fair assessment or not, so I had no choice but to trudge along the road. Shortly a fellow caught up to me and from there on we walked side by side in the snowstorm. Out of the blue a bus stopped next to us and the driver asked if we needed a lift to get off the mountain. Yes, indeed! It was only 2 kms on the bus but felt great sitting in warm for a short bit. By the time we arrived the snow and ice started melting on me. While folding my map I didn't realize we arrived and I got off so quickly I left my gloves on the bus. It wasn't not a big deal, I got a new pair in Glenmore later. The road up the mountain was closed off due to the bad weather just where the bus dropped me off.

 In Glenmore I picked up a new pair of gloves then I started looking for mobile service at the visitor's centre. I also checked out the exhibition of the area as well as the visitors of the nearby bird feeders.

Glenmore Visitor Centre

Cairngorm Reindeer Centre

On the way towards Ryovan, it's been more than enough from this weather for today.

In Ryovan Pass already.

Looking back towards the pass.

The top of the roof of Ryovan bothy.

 At 6 pm already in the bothy. Fortunately the previous hikers left some wood behind and I could make a fire to dry out my staff which they could really use after yesterday's night.

Cooking.

The night was a busy time, 8 of us got together finally plus a doggy. Around 8 pm a father and his 11 years old son arrived after having spent 2 days outdoors. They decided not to dig themselves in the snow because it wasn't deep enough ... and some might say I'm the weird one. The owner of the dog used to help refurbishing the bothies in the area in his youth for half a year, so there were plenty of stories too.