If you have attended a winter skills course and now want to enjoy a high level trek using your new found skills then come and join us on a winter journey. 

This is a new course for the winter of 2006/7 and is designed for clients who wish to progress from the winter skills courses to multi-day overnight trips into the Scottish Winter Mountains. The plan is to run the course between Christmas and New Year and enjoy some early season snow, I have done a recce trip myself at the same time in 2005 and enjoyed fabulous conditions. 

Day 1 - 27th December: We will meet on the first evening in the picture postcard town of Braemar, in the Cairngorms on the East Coast of Scotland. Here you can choose between Youth Hostel Accommodation for £13 per night or hotel accommodation at the Fife Arms Hotel for £50 per night dinner, bed and breakfast. We will get kit together, check boots, crampons, axes, sleeping bags etc and discuss the route as well as purchase food for the trip. We can lend you axes & crampons if you need them on a first come first served basis as i have limited sets.

Day 2 - 28th December: We will park at the Linn of Dee and head off into the Cairngorms for a full day, taking a high level route including Munro summits as the weather allows. We can then experience the delights of an overnight bothy. 

Day 3 - 29th December: After a good nights sleep we will be ideally placed to take in one or two more Munro's, with Ben Macdui being an option if the weather allows. This is the highest summit in the Cairngorm range and is over 4000 ft. Depending upon snow conditions we would then aim to spend a night snow holing, or back into a bothy. 

Day 4 - 30th December: Walk back to Braemar, taking in summits if fitness and weather allow. You can then choose again between hostel and hotel accommodation for the final night. 

Along the way we can refresh ice axe and crampon skills and will obviously look at avalanche awareness and winter weather. We will also discuss the ethics and history of using mountain bothies and how we can play our part in contributing to their future maintenance.

Dates: See diary page   Fully booked
Cost: £250.00  Add to

This course is strenuous and you need to be physically fit to get the most from it. A little bit of training in the form of cycling, running or swimming beforehand will pay dividends! It is also an adventure, there is no guarantee that we will get into a bothy if it is full when we arrive. This could mean that we have to walk several more miles in the dark by head-torch or perhaps bivvy outside. That's real life mountaineering!