Girls' night out!

Sue, Carron and I had been planning a "night out" or rather an overnight trip out into the hills so undeterred by the huge winds forecast for our chosen night, we packed the rucksacks and headed up Cairngorm by the most sheltered way we could find.

The weather yesterday wasn't so bad and we were relatively sheltered where we decided to dig ourselves a snowhole for the night. Four and half hours later, we had a very comfortable space for the three of us and the stoves were on for supper.

During the night the wind speed increased and the direction changed slightly from south west to west so we woke to find our entrance had drifted over with the spindrift and we guessed there must have been some fresh snow so time to pack up and get out for as quickly as we dug out our entrance, it just filled in again. Getting back over the little bit of the plateau we had to cross was quite a challenge and the wind was recorded as gusting at more than 80mph at the Ptarmigan Restaurant. For once we were all glad to have heavy rucksacks to weigh us down.

Back down at the Coire Cas car park, it was quite a different world out of the wind and much more sheltered as a surprising amount of climbers were setting off to go climbing. We wished them good luck and set off to Aviemore for hot chocolate and bacon rolls!