conditions can often be encountered in spring and autumn. Blame it on Scotland’s unpredictable temperate maritime climate.
In whatever month snow and ice are encountered, they transform Scotland’s mountains, giving them a serious arctic/alpine edge and placing big demands on a walker’s skills, fitness and equipment. If winter conditions are expected, then an ice axe and crampons should be considered essential – and they’re naturally no good without the ability to use them safely. Other winter must-haves include ski goggles, headtorch and spare batteries, spare hat and gloves, and a bivvi bag or group shelter.
Climbing into the sun on the north ridge of Ben Starav (Walk 30), with the peaks of Buachaille Etive Mòr (Walk 28) prominent behind
Meall nan Tarmachan from Beinn Ghlas (Walk 37)
Midsummer moisture – Croit Bheinn (right) and the Beinn Odhar hills from Druim Fiaclach (Walk 23)
There’s a hoary old cliché that winter hillwalking is actually a branch of mountaineering. In snow, scrambly summer ridge walks certainly become exciting mountaineering routes, genuine climbs with their own grading system (expressed in Roman numerals), for which climbing equipment and skills are essential. Non-climbers should avoid any of the walks in this book given a winter grade of I or II in the Seasonal notes section of the information box. On even the least craggy peaks walkers might encounter steep icy slopes, cornices and the lurking threat of avalanche (see Avalanches, below). Ploughing through deep snow is slow and tiring, and in such conditions big walks might stretch from day trips into rigorous overnighters. Skis or snowshoes sometimes prove handy to cover meaningful distances, and occasionally verge on essential in a really snowy spell. Even driving to your chosen route can become an adventure; check road conditions before departure, and consider investing in snow chains or winter tyres.
At its worst winter weather is ferocious, with any combination of crippling wind speeds, stinging hail and rain, blizzards, spindrift and thick mist reducing visibility to as little as a few metres. When there’s less margin for error navigation has to be that bit sharper, an ability that is only developed through repeated practice. Could you navigate confidently across a featureless snowy plateau in a white-out, with invisible cornices out there somewhere and darkness fast approaching? In the heaviest conditions even basic mobility on exposed ground may be reduced to a crawl, and it’s a struggle just to get off the hill. When the weather forecast is bad consider downgrading your ambitions; if it’s really horrendous, then the sofa might be a better place to be.
But all this extra effort brings proportionate rewards – and while winter’s lows are cavernous, the highs are correspondingly stratospheric. On any true adventure success must occasionally be in doubt; there are certainly few guarantees in the Scottish winter hills. Here we are thrown onto our own resources, and plans made in the comfort of the pub may have to be adapted on the hoof to suit the changing demands of the day.
Stob Coire nan Lochan, Aonach Eagach and distant Ben Nevis from Bidean nam Bian (Walk 28)
Winter hills are a world apart from the ordinary, so harsh and so elementally beautiful that their existence on an overdeveloped island can at times seem barely credible – ranks of white-capped peaks jostling to the horizon; wind-carved abstractions on the snow’s crust, each shadow stretched in the low-slung mid-day sun; dark clouds boiling in ice-streaked corries; Gothic gloom and moments of uplifting joy. Winter trips are the most rigorous of all hill walks, and arguably the most memorable. Just take nothing for granted.
Hazards
Avalanches
Walkers disregard the possibility of avalanches at their peril, and avoidable accidents sadly occur. Daily avalanche forecasts for five popular mountain areas are provided by the sportScotland Avalanche Information Service (SAIS) www.sais.gov.uk. Although a handy weapon in the hill-going armoury, these forecasts are a supplement to knowledge, not a substitute for it. Snow can fall outside the SAIS forecast season, and many mountain areas are not covered by the service at all. Besides, even the best forecasts are only a rough guide. Personal responsibility is integral to all mountain activities, so it pays to learn a little about avalanches and to cultivate a weather eye for likely trouble spots.
The necessary preconditions for an avalanche are simply sufficient snow cover and an incline. The snowpack builds in layers over time, each of which may have different properties depending on the weather when it was laid and subsequently. Contact between layers of different consistency can be a point of weakness – windslab lying on ice, for instance. In such a situation a ‘surface avalanche’ may be an accident waiting to happen, just wanting an appropriate trigger to release – perhaps a passing walker. In the hairiest conditions avalanches don’t even need an identifiable trigger. Slides may also occur to the full depth of the snowpack, and here the underlying ground surface may be implicated – smooth grass or rock slabs, perhaps.
Consider the weather. Rapid thaws are obviously risky. Be vigilant during heavy snowfall, too, and for a day or two afterwards while things settle. All loaded snow slopes may be considered suspect, but there will always be particular danger areas. Winds scour lying snow from windward slopes, depositing it on sheltered leeward aspects to build as cornices at the tops of gullies and corrie headwalls and as windslab on the slopes below; either may mean trouble. Wise walkers scan the weather for several days before a trip, noting both the amount of snowfall and the strength and general direction of the wind. A route can then be planned that avoids likely lee slopes, always bearing in mind, of course, that topography may channel winds in unpredictable directions.
Here are a few more general rules. Slopes between about 25° and 45° are the most at risk – precisely the sort of angles that walkers tend to encounter. Stress fractures occur more readily where the underlying ground is convex. Ridge crests are generally safer than open slopes, although they might carry substantial cornices, the possible fracture line for which may be surprisingly far from the edge.
These brief paragraphs inevitably raise more questions than they answer. If there’s no choice but to travel a suspect slope, how should you proceed? How might a victim increase their survival chances while falling with hundreds of tons of snow? In a Scottish context, what are the pros and cons of transceivers, probes and shovels? As a bare minimum some further reading is highly recommended – see Appendix 3; better still would be to take a course on avalanche awareness.
Cold
Continental mountains may be much colder than Scottish ones in absolute terms, but they tend to be drier too. The combination of wind and wet for which Scotland is renowned can drain body heat very rapidly, creating a felt temperature far lower than the actual thermometer value. Walkers who are inadequately dressed, soaking wet, tired, hungry or slowed by disorientating weather may risk hypothermia, and not just in winter.
Shivering is an early danger sign. With a drop in core body temperature of only a couple of degrees from the optimum average 37°C the blood begins to drain from the extremities to conserve heat in the core, making manual tasks difficult and exposing hands and feet to the possibility of frostnip (or even in, extreme cases, frostbite). Coordination and brain function begin to be impaired, resulting in slower progress and poorer decision making. If heat loss is unchecked a downward spiral may set in, eventually leading to unconsciousness and ultimately death.
