Winter Skills in the Cairngorms

I head for the snow-capped majesty of the Cairngorms to learn winter skills and meet some remarkable people with inspiring tales of courage, devotion, and survival. (Although, the less said about the pink unicorns, the better.)

The High Road

Beyond Perth, the landscape changes. The sprawl of human conurbation melts into the rear view mirror as the road handrails the River Tay and enters the Craigvinean Forest. Slender trunks of silver birch, white as winter ghosts, fan into filigrees of garnet twig, and dark towers of Scots pine wear tam o’ shanters of Caledonian green.

The road climbs out of the woods and into the hills, lightly flecked at first, but slowly, steadily, the snow line creeps lower, until up ahead, rises a pure white winter peak. A tremble of excitement. This is what I’m here for.

Winter’s touch turns our green hills into Alpine mountains and amplifies our wonderstruck response. But it introduces new levels of treachery. An understanding of winter terrain and its inherent hazards, together with the tools and techniques required to navigate it successfully are vital. Microspikes can only get you so far, so I’m heading for the Highlands to learn some winter skills.

Hayley Webb

It’s taken longer than the miles on the map suggest. I’d booked on to a day-long course on Helvellyn in February 2020, but Storm Dennis put paid to that. It was rearranged for March 16th, but due to an administrative cockup, no instructor turned up. I climbed Helvellyn anyway with another would-be pupil, Matt Napier. Matt turned out to be a sound-engineer who had just returned from Paris. The events he was due to work had been cancelled because of coronavirus. “Anyone I might have heard of?” I asked. “Madonna, “ he relied. “I’m Madonna’s monitor engineer”. I learned lots about life on the road with Madonna, and Roger Waters, and Kylie, but we learned no winter skills. We wouldn’t have anyway—there was no snow.

I arrived home to the announcement that we would be going into lockdown and a very apologetic email from the course organiser offering a refund or a rebooking, although it was uncertain when. I had a little rant on Facebook, and Hayley Webb got in touch.

“I’ll teach you”, she said, and she sent me details of a course she was planning in the Cairngorms for 12 months’ time. It was three full days on the mountain, which sounded far more substantial in terms of what I’d learn.  Hayley taught me to navigate so I know what a good instructor she is. What’s more, in a former life, Hayley was a chef, and she would be doing all the catering. Well this would be the icing on the traybake. I would have to wait a year, but 2020 would be a year when all our lives were put on hold. This would be something to look forward to when it was all over.

COVID

Only it wasn’t all over. By February 2021, we were back in lockdown, and the rules in Scotland were even stricter. Hayley was forced to postpone all her bookings, and this being weather dependent, it would mean waiting another year. I signed up straight away.

It was a terrible time for mountain leaders, as it was for anyone trying to keep their own business afloat. Hayley took a job at Sainsburys, packing orders for home delivery. There, she met Gemma Grewar, another mountain leader, who had taken a job as a delivery driver.

On Radio 6, I heard Tom Robinson recount a conversation with an Amazon driver. She told him his gig at the Barbican, two years earlier, had been one of the best she’d seen. She was young. Not typical of his normal audience demographic, so out of curiosity, he asked her why she had attended. “I was your sound engineer,” she replied. I thought of Matt Napier and hoped he was keeping his head above water.

Lagganlia Outdoor Education Centre

COVID still isn’t over, but the latest Omicron variant is proving generally less severe, and life is taking tentative steps back to normal. This morning, the Facebook Messenger group, which Hayley set up to keep us all looped in, was a flurry of negative test photos and excitable examples of overpacking—we were bonding in our desperate bids not to leave anything behind. Now, we are all about to meet for the first time.

As I turn off the Aviemore road at Kincraig and cross the bridge over the River Spey on the edge of Loch Insh, a frisson of anxiety creeps in. I’m minutes from Feshiebridge, the Lagganlia Outdoor Education Centre, and Caeketton lodge, which will be our home for the next four nights, and I realise just how insular I’ve become as a result of all the restrictions. I have a gregarious, outgoing side, but also an introverted side, which has grown to dominate of late. Now, the thought of spending four nights and three whole days with a group of total strangers (Hayley excepted—although we’d only met once) feels intimidating.

That feeling evaporates the second I walk through the door to the warmest of welcomes. The room is already buzzing with convivial conversation and filled with enticing cooking aromas. Hayley shows me to the four-bed bunk room, I’ll be sharing with Rob, a police community support officer and fellow guitarist with a gentle sense of humour and a passion for wild-camping. We are two of only three men on the course. The other is Andy, but Claire has already bagged him. Which is fair enough considering they are partners, although she made that deliberately unclear in her mischievous message to the group earlier, where she raised one or two eyebrows by insinuating she that was getting first dibs. This soon proves typical of Claire’s wicked sense of humour, perfectly matched by Andy’s dry wit. In the course of conversation, I learn they are seasoned long-distance walkers, veterans of several national trails, but Claire has an aversion to steep descents, a fact she discovered recently on Striding Edge, which she ended up crossing on all fours. She has booked a one-to-one course with Hayley in April to try and overcome it, but in the meantime, the next three days hold obvious concerns. That she is here, ready to confront her fears, shows genuine courage.

Kit

After supper, it’s kit inspection—to check we all have suitable ice axes, and crampons, and compatible boots. I award myself Brownie points for having purchased the same ice axe as Hayley, but she tells me my crampons are really designed for boots with a slightly stiffer sole. They’ll be OK, but I should be vigilant in case they pop off.

My boots are three-and-a-half season boots, that will take a flexible crampon. Winter boots are better as they have a stiffer sole, but the added stiffness makes them less comfortable to walk in all year round. If you want boots you can use in all seasons, you are looking at a comprise. Three-and-a-half season boots make the compromise in favour of comfort, while B1 winter boots make it in favour of rigidity. If I am to get serious about walking in full winter conditions, I would be best investing in a pair of B2 boots, which are optimised for crampon use and insulation.

Hayley introduces Gemma, her fellow Winter Mountain Leader and Sainsburys veteran. Gemma is here to assist in case they need to split the group or work on specifics with individuals. This comes as a relief to many of us who are worried about our fitness levels.

Finally comes an appraisal of the weather. Researching conditions and adjusting plans accordingly is key. Wind speeds upwards of 60 m.p.h. are forecast for tomorrow, so we’ll not be going anywhere near the summit of Cairn Gorm..

As we all turn in, Hayley and Gemma study maps to determine where we are likely to find snow at safe altitudes, while keeping as far as possible in the rain and sleet shadow.

Loch an Eilein

In the morning, we stuff sandwiches and delicious homemade tray bakes into our rucksacks, stow ice axes and skiing goggles, don gaiters and waterproofs, and set off for Loch an Eilein.

Ahead of the storms, the air is crisp and dry, the sun extending fingers of white gold around the hems of soft grey cloud pillows, turning tranquil waters to liquid silver. Loch an Eilein means Loch of the Island, and the island in question hides a castle in a copse of trees. The castle started life as a fortified tower built by a notoriously ruthless grandson of Robert the Bruce, known as the Wolf of Badenoch. A curtain wall was added in the 1600, ninety years before the castle was besieged by defeated Jacobites fleeing the Battle of Cromdale. In 1745, it hid fugitives from the Battle of Culloden. A snapshot of Scottish history in a setting unfathomably older. The castle is now home to ospreys.

As the path snakes between the tall pines of Forest of Rothiemurchus, mossy woodland aromas fill our nostrils; and twigs sprout white beards of reindeer lichen. Hayley tells us the woods are home to capercaillie. From the Gaelic, capall coille, meaning “horse of the wood”, the capercaillie is a black, turkey-sized member of the grouse family. They can be aggressive if cornered, and have been known to harass dog-walkers. All the same, I’d love to see one.

Avalanche Awareness

We’re ascending, so when we emerge from the woods we hit the snow line, and the learning starts. We’re surrounded by high hills, and Hayley has us observe how the eastern faces are snow-laden, while western faces are sparse and potentially icy: the prevailing wind was from the west last night, blowing the snow over the ridges to create loaded eastern slopes. We look for cornices, overhangs of compacted snow that could break away causing avalanches. The risk is heightened when fresh powdery drift settles on top of hard, compacted snow, but the top can freeze creating a crust and giving the illusion that all is firm. Hayley demonstrates on the bank by the side of the path. The snow is crunchy, but she excavates a section with her axe and reveals soft powdery stuff beneath, ice below that. She jumps on top and stamps down with her boot. The snow cracks into a tile and slides off.

Self Arrest

We find a knoll with a reasonable gradient and walk to the top, using our boots to kick steps in the yielding snow, sinking deeper with each step. It’s tiring, and Hayley bids us remember this when planning winter walks—add extra time, don’t be over-ambitious with distance. From the top she has us slide down on our bums, following each other’s line until we create four compacted slippery runs with soft, gentle, rock-free run offs at the bottom. It’s time to don helmets and learn how to self-arrest with an ice-axe.

We’ve already learned how to hold the axe—hand over the top and the pick end facing backwards—to use the shaft and spike like a short trekking pole, but that grip also allows a rapid lift to the chest if you feel yourself slipping. The idea is to nestle the blunt adze into the hollow beneath your clavicle, then turn as you fall, driving the sharp pick into the snow, with your full weight on top of it.  You grab the other end with your free hand and look down the shaft to optimise your position. Oh, and remember to lift your feet into the air, so that if you’re wearing crampons, they don’t dig in and catapult you head over heels down the slope. It’s a lot to remember in the split-second panic of a slip, and if you’re ever to use it in anger, it would have to be second nature. We practice over and over, safe in the knowledge that failure here meets a soft landing. Hayley marches round like a Strictly Come Dancing instructor, barking orders on body-line and position. It’s exhilarating and exhausting.

Gemma notices Claire hanging back and quietly, unobtrusively, takes her aside for a one-to-one counsel.

Meanwhile, black clouds have been moving up the valley. When the wind whips up and horizontal sleet stings our faces, we don ski goggles and begin the long tramp back down.

I chat to Nikki, a solicitor who’s been a Facebook friend for a while, but this is the first time we’ve met. She’s every bit as warm, loud, chatty, and full-of-fun as I imagined. And every bit as passionate about mountains—although after a year dogged with bereavement, injury, and a recent bout of COVID, her fitness has waned and she’s found today a struggle. Not that anyone else would notice.

And Andrea, who works freelance, teaching kids about nutrition and cooking and a host of other stuff that sounds richly rewarding. She was in the army and was stationed for a while in Herford, Germany, where my Dad was posted in my mid-teens. We reminisce about Herforder Pils, Gluhwein, and Christmas markets.

In the evening, after a hearty meal, we learn to read avalanche forecasts and determine which faces will be safe and which hazardous for us to tread in the morning.

Cairn Gorm

The next day we decamp to the ski centre car park, and with the Met Office predictions of kinder weather holding true, we start up the slopes of Cairn Gorm. We learn to kick snow steps with our boots, and to cut them with our axes. When our feet no longer sink in, we don crampons. “Walk like John Wayne,” says Hayley, “because you have sharp spikes sticking out the sides of your boots, and you don’t want to rip the bottom of your waterproofs. Rob forgets and nicks a small slit in his over-trousers. A little further on, I do the same.

Once we have the hang of things, Hayley and Gemma have us running down a slope to appreciate the grip the crampons afford.

“How are you feeling, Claire?” shouts, Hayley.

“Great!” replies Claire, raising her ice axe in triumph before joining the downward race, her demons conquered.

Point 1141

A steep ridge leads up to Point 1141 (higher than Scafell Pike, yet unnamed). On this slope we find névé, snow that has partially melted and refrozen to form a hard, compacted surface. With the crampons’ teeth biting hard, and no more sinking, the going becomes easier despite the gradient.

As the ridge narrows, Gemma counsels us to keep 10m or more from the north eastern edge, where the slopes are loaded. If a cornice breaks, it takes a significant amount of snow from the ridge top with it, and it will take you too, if you’re too close.

A rocky path is mostly free of snow, and Hayley insists we walk some of the way on it to get use to the feel of crampons on rock,  uncomfortable, but sometimes necessary in mixed terrain.

As we approach the top of the ridge, the cloud is beginning to break. Loch Morlich appears in the distance, a sliver of duck egg blue in a nest of forest green. Rob looks down the long line of the ridge and observes that you really couldn’t afford to make a mistake if you were practising ice-axe arrests here.

“Oh I dunno,” quips Andy, “you’d stop moving by the time you reached Inverness”.

Point 1141 sits 104 metres below the summit of Cairn Gorm and is marked by a large cairn. It is enveloped in clag, but as we rest, the mist dissipates and unveils an astonishing view. Across a corrie, the buttressed mass of Fiacaill Ridge tapers to a jagged arête above plunging precipices, rendered in monochrome by streaks of snow, exposed black rock, soft sun and heavy shadow. It’s as if we have stepped into a finely hatched pencil sketch, an ink drawing, a sublime larger-than-life etching. Hayley is seldom lost for words, but here, she falls silent in wonder.

Loch Morlich

It’s not the only transcendental moment of the day. On the drive back to the lodge, we pass the shore of Loch Morlich, just as the sun is about to set. Through the trees, we spy an onyx sheen illuminated with mirror images of the mountains. Hayley pulls over, and we run to water’s edge to lose ourselves in a tranquil tableau of snow-capped summits, reflected in perfect symmetry.

Shelter on Windy Ridge

The following morning we head up Cairn Gorm’s Windy Ridge. In fresh snow, we follow recent tracks of mountain hare. We cross a ski-slope, its wooden fence bejewelled with glittering formations of wind-ridged ice. We enter a disorienting world of near whiteout, but not quite: the tops of boulders are still visible through the snow. In total whiteout, there is no distinction between ground and sky.

Hayley relays a hair-raising story of being caught in a blizzard here. It came in twelve hours earlier than expected, and with no phone signal, she and her friends were unaware of the revised forecast. They dug deep snow shelters, in which to ride it out, but when it refused to abate, they navigated off the mountain using a compass and pacing techniques, through trenches they carved with their axes. The experience convinced Hayley that she had what it takes to train as a winter mountain leader.

Digging snow shelters is what we do next, using the adze end of our axes. Ours are not deep enough to see out a blizzard (that would take hours) but sufficient to afford temporary respite from the bitter, biting wind.

Rob and I wear gaudy badges of shame for failing to walk like John Wayne. Last night Hayley offered to patch our torn waterproofs with duct tape, without telling us her duct tape is bright pink and sports unicorns. “It’s all I’ve got,” she said with a wicked smirk as she handed them back.

Back in the warmth of the lodge, I chat to Lesley. In September 2019, her young daughter was diagnosed with cancer and underwent several harrowing cycles of chemotherapy. She’s in remission, but until now, Lesley has not left her side. Lesley’s life was put on hold so she could devote everything to caring for her child. This is the first time that she has done something for herself. She is humble and unassuming, and her story has touched all our hearts.

In the morning, I drive Lesley and Charlotte to the station in Aviemore; and as I turn the car around to begin the journey home, I reflect on three inspiring and transformative days of crucial skills, challenging weather, and impossibly majestic landscapes, all spent in the company of some truly remarkable people.

You can find Hayley Webb’s Mountain Adventures page on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/HayleyWebbAdventures/