Snowshoeing in Scotland

I'Ve just had a wonderful morning on my snowshoes, walking from Kingussie back home to Newtonmore via Creag Bheag and Loch Gynack.

After suffering a real mix of weather this week we've had a big dump of snow and a couple of sub zero nights. This morning the sun shone too, making conditions ideal for a wee walk on my snowshoes.

It turned out to be quite beautiful, and there was actually a fair bit of warmth from the sun, so much that I found myself lying back sunbathing at one point. We could do with a few more days like this.

Anyway, I've put a few photos of that wee walk on the blog and I've also pasted below a feature I wrote last year for the Scots Magazine, taking more of an in-depth look at why I enjoy snowshoeing. I hope you enjoy it...

Snowshoes – Any Good for Scotland?

(First poublished in the Scots Magazine)

Travellers of old considered it to be the “terror time”, when all the difficulties of everyday living were exacerbated by nature’s frozen hand. Winter, together with her handmaidens of wind, ice, snow and freezing temperatures, was considered hostile and life threatening and justifiably so. In some areas of the Scottish highlands the spirit of the Cailleach Bheur, the blue hag who according to legend rides the wings of the storms to deal out her icy death to unfortunate travellers, clearly manifested her cold charms on a regular basis. One account describes her well:

“Her face was blue with cold, her hair white with frost and the plaid that wrapped her bony shoulders was grey as the winter fields.”

But the same account goes on to suggest that the adventurer who lingers in the secret places of the mountains senses that the cailleach and the spirit life are still there, and becomes aware that enchantment has not vanished entirely from the world.

“Enchantment” seems as good a word as any to describe the experience of the winter hills, especially when the snow arrives suddenly and unexpectedly and if proper precautions are taken snow covered hills offer treasures that can be unforgettable.

Really deep snow can be problematic, so unless you have a fondness for purgatory you’ll need to make do with a low level walk or consider some kind of flotation device that will keep you close to the surface of the snow. That’s either skis or snowshoes and more often these days I find myself choosing showshoes.

At this point I should perhaps confess something. For years I nurtured a rather snobbish attitude towards the concept of snowshoeing. Since I was a lad I’ve skied over the hills in winter. I once ran a cross country ski school; I was a qualified instructor; I’m always thrilled to telemark my way down mountain slopes rather than plod down on foot. In fact, I couldn’t think of anything more disheartening than plodding through snowfields on foot. Why snowshoe when you can ski? And there’s never been much of a tradition of snowshoeing in Scotland, but having said that, before the sixties there hadn’t been much of a tradition of ski-ing either!

Five or six years ago I side-slipped a little from my principled stance when I was gently encouraged to try some snowshoeing in the French Alps by an instructor called Hilary Sharp, who runs her own snowshoeing courses in Vallorcine, close to the Swiss border.

“Snowshoeing is the fastest growing winter activity in the Alps,” was her well rehearsed opening line but one I didn’t doubt. I had checked out some statistics and I knew that in the US snowshoe sales had rocketed from 13500 pairs in 1996 to over 160000 pairs in 2000. For better or for worse such American trends usually get replicated here in Europe.

Snowshoeing – the fastest growing outdoor activity in Europe or a method of allowing less adventurous outdoors folk to move around on snow covered terrain? Or was it the last reincarnation of the old hide and birch contraptions that allowed Yukon gold moilers to move around in winter, the final throw of the footwear of the heroes of Nordic sagas? Surely in the twentyfirst century we had developed faster, more streamlined methods of moving on snow rather than plodding uphill on overdeveloped tennis rackets?

But Hilary’s opening pep-talk and gear demonstration was far from plodding. She waxed lyrical about a fun-filled and often demanding form of winter travel, used by mountaineers, snowboarders as well as elderly ramblers –with a nod in my direction! And the gear was a techies-dream. Although the French still refer to snowshoes as raquettes, dismiss all thoughts of tennis rackets that tie to your foot, forget about birch and bamboo and leather thongs. Modern snowshoes are lightweight, highly engineered and extremely technical and come in a wide array of styles. Take your choice between lightweight and grippy models that will transport mountaineers or winter backpackers into mountainous terrain that could prove very difficult for a ski-tourers’ skins; heavier, more solid snowshoes that provide a solid toehold for climbers on steep chutes or even ultra-lightweight models for runners – Nike sponsor the US National Snowshoe Championships over a 10k course.

In essence modern snowshoes allow you to float on the snow rather than sink in to it and opens up the kind of terrain that I loathe as a hillwalker, where every step sinks you up to your knee. My scepticism was waning fast and already I could visualise long snowy days on the Cairngorm plateau…

To cut a long story short I took to snowshoeing like a duck to water and I’ve never looked back. In those few days on the wonderful snow covered slopes of the French and Swiss Alps I discovered something – or re-descovered something. I realised that my experience of Alpine snowshoeing had re-awakened something in me that I subliminally thought had been lost forever – the sheer love and joy that is to be found in a snow-covered mountain landscape. Ski-ing had probably tied me up in its technicalities, while mountaineering had been too focussed on safety and survival. In that week of French and Swiss mountains, snowshoes presented themselves as the tools to travel comfortably, along with the simplicity to enjoy the travelling, and in so doing, enabled me to get a little closer to the heartbeat of the winter world. I couldn’t wait to try them out at home.

That opportunity arose a couple of weeks later. It snowed for several days and became too deep even for skis – and with many high level roads still closed by snow and ice I wanted to climb a hill that wouldn’t give me any access problems. Geal Charn Mor, at 824 metres, close to Aviemore and the A9, fitted the bill perfectly.

This Corbett’s finest feature is probably best seen from the old A9 between Kincraig and Dalraddy – broad slopes that lead to a flattened summit from the steep and craggy nose of An Squabach. This craggy nose probably represents the wildest of these south facing Monadhliath hills and viewed from across the waters of Loch Alvie, with its tranquil whitewashed kirk, represents one of the finest views in the area.

In years gone by I’ve climbed Geal Charn Mor more often than I can remember; sometimes as a midsummer’s evening stroll, at other times on ski and on one occasion as part of a long high level trek over these eastern Monadhliath hills all the way back to my home in Newtonmore. That was a memorable two-day walk and made a lie of the perception that these hills are dull and boring. Beyond this south facing façade, the Monadhliath give way to some of the wildest and remotest landscapes south of the Great Glen, beyond the River Dulnain to the great hill-gouging trench of the River Findhorn. And beyond the Findhorn a huge uninhabited, wild and remote quarter stretches toward Glen Albyn itself.

An estate track runs up to a high bealach between Geal Charn Mor and Geal Charn Beag and is known locally as the Burma Road. An argo-cat had been driven up the track flattening the snow sufficiently to make walking relatively easy – no need for the snowshoes just yet.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much snow on these hills. The old pine trees that grow alongside the Allt Dubh were bent and twisted under the weight of it and the smoother hill slopes above were blindingly white to the eye. A temperature inversion meant that I climbed through shimmering banks of mist that played and drifted between the trees – an ethereal and curiously eerie experience, and above the mists the clarity and quality of the light was exceptional.

Once I reached the high point it was time to put on the snowshoes. Away from the security and solidity of the track the faint footpath that runs up to the summit of Geal Charn Mor was well hidden below, at least, eighteen inches of snow. On foot I would have plunged through the deep snow, a frustrating and exhausting experience, but by spreading my weight on the surface of the snow the snowshoes only sank in three or four inches. With careful placement of each footstep I could stay pretty close to the surface.

As it happened it wasn’t the snow that caused me problems. I was developing a mild headache from the reflection of the low winter sun on the unbroken snow cover. Stupidly I hadn’t brought any sunglasses or goggles with me and it was almost painful to gaze across the vast swathe of glistening white hills that lay to the north. As I peered at it through screwed up eyes the Monadh Liath was spread before me in Arctic splendour, vast, uncaring, and indomitable, all signs of man’s presence hidden under this huge quilt of white.

The summit trig point of Geal Charn Mor was all but covered in snow – only the top of the concrete obelisk protruded from the snow to tell me I had reached the summit. I sat on it and ate my lunch but it was too cold to linger for long – fingers and toes, and bum, were beginning to go numb!

The snowshoes helped enormously on the descent. Where normally I would have continually plunged into thigh deep snow banks I stayed close to the surface, all the way down to the subsidiary top of Creag Ghleannain, then across the snowed-up ravine of the Allt Dubh back to the Burma Road track.

I stopped for a hot coffee beneath the spreading limbs of an old granny pine where chaffinches, blue tits and a little flock of delightfully tiny coal tits shared the crumbs of my sandwich. It was good to be reminded that even amongst such frigid austerity, life goes on. I was thankful that snowshoes had made it all relatively easy for me.