Another outing to the Clash this weekend after the snow on Friday. The roads were quite snowy up from Lumphanan and I had to divert via Insch following a crashed milk tanker between Lumsden and Rhynie.

The signs in Rhynie were showing “Road Closed Cabrach” but the chap in the shop at Rhynie thought you ought to be able to get up to the ski trails so I gave it a go. Sorry to Colin Miller if that was you I saw as I was driving through the village and didn’t stop!

The road up the the Clash had a good snow covering and I now know some people had tried and failed to get through earlier in the day. I stopped at the turn to Boganclogh Lodge to chat to Robin Gatenby and then pressed on to the Clash car park. The road was so narrow at one point that my Toyota Yaris felt like it anything wider would have got stuck between the high snow banks!

I arrived safely at the carpark and found it totally empty. The temperature was around freezing but the strong wind made it fell pretty cold.

The forest was mainly unpisted with any tracks being covered in wind covered snow. Occaisionally you found sections of loipe or traces of tracks hidden under the snow. There was a surprising amount of glide given the depth of the unpisted snow, but I put this down to it being quite powdery.

Conditions were mostly very flattering to my downhill technique. I count myself as in the bottom 10% of anybody who has done a telemark turn, but even I could put together a series of linked teles on skinny skis down most of the slopes this Saturday 🙂

I skied up Higland Fling then over the Haute Route. Snow conditions were generally good up to the top of the Haute Route with about 10cm of powder on top of hard frozen snow. The sky was blue and it was very sunny. The trees in the forest are at their most beautiful when covered in snow during these conditions. The second half of the Haute Route down to Short Cut was a bit more problematic with large drifts interspersed with wind blown icy patches. Nonetheless I was able to do one long sweeping telemark turn around the tricky bit as you come off the Top of the Haute Route where I usually end up with my face in the nearest snow bank.

While on the top of the Haute Route my illusion of being the only person in the forest was shattered by a couple of people from Muchalls (South of Stonehaven) who whizzed past me. I followed them for a bit happy to have someone else break trail for a while, but passed them after a chat as they stopped for a lunch stop.

Leids leap was a bit of a disappointment because it was covered in quite a depth of powder and my skinny skis went down rather than floating on top, although I managed to get some nice turns in towards the bottom. Emboldened by the benign conditions I cut down Deer Track to Range Way. That was a bit of a mistake because  alternating deep snow and wind blown icy crust that made Range Way tricky to navigate. I managed to fall over at the bottom of Range Way, only for Iona and Mrs Gatenby to appear as I lay in the snow.

After a quick chat I retraced my route up the main drag to turn up Short Cut, a personal favourite route, and then turned left up to the Orange transmitter. I then turned around by the transmitter and put a series of perfect S-shaped tele tracks down the slope to return down short cut and back to the car park as quite a heavy snow shower was blowing in.

Another breathtaking afternoon in the Clash which gave me time to reflect on life and recent changes.