Creag Leacach

This was a first for me - a Munro climb squeezed into one of our annual visits to Scotland in February. The girls were with Carrie's parents in Erskine, and Carrie was flying down to London for the day, so my sister Ruth and I were thinking of snapping up Ben Vane over by Loch Lomond. The forecast was pretty awful for the west however, so at the last minute we changed our plans and went for Creag Leacach in Glen Shee. I dropped Carrie at the airport at about 7.15, and drove to South Gyle, got petrol and additional snacks, drink and the Scotsman, parked, and settled down to wait for Ruth who arrived about 8.15. She drove (there and back), which was a welcome break for me. We saw some blue sky here and there as we drove up the M90, but not much sign of it in Glen Shee. There was also an icy wind blowing as we parked, got out of the car and got booted up. Ruth lent me a Pack-Lite jacket to wear under my coat, taking me up to six layers on top, but I was still a bit chilly.

There was lots of patchy snow around and had obviously been more but it was melting. Ruth had been up here just two weeks previously with her friend Joyce and done Glas Maol, but had abandoned an attempt to take in Creag Leacach as well due to too much snow and tiredness. I of course had declined an opportunity to do it eleven years previously and had been wondering why ever since. We got off by about 10.30, with the first of a number of stream crossings to do right away.

Once across the stream we headed eastwards up by another stream to where it curved northwards. Now we had to cross this one to get onto the slopes of Creag Leacach's south-west ridge. I managed this further down, while Ruth got across a bit further on past the curve.

The view west over Glen Shee to the Cairnwell

We were now much more sheltered from the wind and feeling quite warm. It was quite a haul up to the crest of the ridge, and we stopped near the crest while still sheltered to have some lunch.

Then we climbed into the wind on the ridge, picked up a path of sorts and were soon into mist. The 943m high south-west top wasn't far, then we pushed on down a bit then up to the summit, following a wall that runs right along the ridge crest. I think it runs all the way to the summit of Glas Maol in fact. At one point I stopped to tie a lace - I was wearing a pair of brand new Zamberlan Trail Lite boots. I left my compass lying where I had stopped and had to go back to search for it - ironic considering my exploits of eleven years before!

Summit Photo II

Needless to say we didn't hang around very long in the cold and the wind - only long enough for the statutory photos and celebratory Mars Bar. We then continued north-eastwards by the wall down to the bealach, trudging through some quite deep snowdrifts, then dropped off westwards down the corrie and eventually back to the stream. It wasn't too steep, and Ruth even managed some bum-sliding on the snow. I didn't join her as I didn't have on waterproofs, and had rather thoughtlessly omitted to bring along a handy plastic bag for the purpose!

We made good time, with a fairly easy crossing of the stream as we were higher up, then skirted round to the route we'd started on. We got back to the car by about 2.30, had some welcome hot tea and sandwiches and changed the wettest of our clothes. It was a little disappointing that we'd had no sunshine despite a fairly hopeful forecast for that area. There had been some drizzle, even a little snow at the top, and cloud all day, but I was still pleased to have fitted in a Munro climb in February! On the road home we had some heavier rain at first - which we were very glad to have missed on the walk - then some sunshine. We had a brief stop in Blairgowrie then straight back to Edinburgh. Ruth picked up her car at the Gyle - thankfully it had no ticket or anything on it despite the signs around the car park saying "Maximum stay 3 hours". I then drove back to Corrennie Gardens to dump my wet clothes before joining Ruth again at Mum's for tea. Carrie arrived by bus from the airport soon afterwards.