Log 27 Dec 2009

Sunday 27 December 2009 saw bitterly cold conditions continue across Scotland.

The programme gave Ben Vrackie at Moulin beside Pitlochry as the suggested hill for the day.
Iain W, Laurence A, Dave K, Derek McG and Noelle R all met up at the car park at 8:30am.
However our visit to the intended hill was quickly abandoned on hearing that the A9 was blocked by cars and snow south of Perth.
Dave K suggested a visit to the Campsies to climb the sinisterly named "Coffin" gully on the South face of Slackdhu.
All were happy to to this and 9:00am found us on Campsie Dene Road and heading up across open fields and moor to the foot of the route.
Coffin gully can best be described as a "mixed" easy scramble which had several interesting little "pitches" - certainly nothing too technical .
However deep loose snow covered frozen turf and rocks and this certainly added to the route interest! As can be seen by Derek`s photos, the snow didn`t let up and gave a very Christmassy feel to the day.
We arrived on the plateau to be met by a biting wind and a brief lapse in snow showers saw us descending / bumsliding another easy gully back down to the moor.

We stopped for lunch but the day was too young to justify a pub visit and we headed back to Milngavie

Iain Wilson