After I headed back up from down south yesterday Nettle and I were keen to get out in the hills today to blow the Christmas cobwebs away.
We headed for Glen Shee and very hopefully took ski touring gear thinking there was a small chance we might be able to link snow patches for a quick tour. The skis stayed firmly in the van and we headed out for a walk over Glas Maol; out and back to Creag Leacach, around to Druim Mor and up to Cairn of Claise. This took in three new Munros for Nettle and a new top for me and fitted the day well.
There were quite a lot of snow patches around higher up. The snow was generally wet and soft, but was firming up at height as the day wore on. The ground was saturated and above about 1000m some of the turf was still firm. Early on in the day it was raining continuously with this falling as sleet above 900m. The rain eased off early in the morning with just the odd hail or sleet shower in the afternoon. Strong southerly winds through the day and these were increasing in strength to above 50mph at height as we descended.
