Chris Hatherill: Snow problem!

Crampons? Check. Ice Axe? Check. B2-rated winter boots? Check. Four-season sleeping bag with separate waterproof (ideally Gore-Tex™) bivvy bag? Check.

I’m running through the lengthy packing list for Winter Fest 2012, checking off the many items I do not own. Make that items I have never actually handled. Or indeed heard of. But after a quick Wikipedia search reveals that a bivvy, or bivouac sack, is essentially just British for ‘large waterproof bag’ I begin to relax. Surely, this is all a bit overkill. We’re only going to Scotland, after all, and I’m a Canadian who’s camped out without a tent (or even a ‘bivvy’) at –23° and once huddled in a cave with a family of bears after getting lost on a school trip.

OK, so that last fact isn’t true, but the other is. It was on one of many winter camping trips with the Scouts outside of Ottawa. Armed with little more than Swiss Army knives, Snickers bars and a reckless disregard for the elements, we’d set out to practise building makeshift shelters from branches and snow. After spending the night in our proudly-built accommodation (basically one step up from a self-dug grave) we’d emerged bleary-eyed the next morning to learn from our leader’s fancy thermometer that the temperature had dipped to a low of –23° during the night: a story I’ve been scaring non-Canadians with ever since.

Of course, that was many moons ago, and in the time since I’ve grown accustomed to London ‘winters’ and don’t even own a snow shovel, let alone the Shackleton-style list of equipment I’ve been told to bring. Still, the prospect of spending a night in a well-dug snow hole as part of Natural High Guiding‘s first-ever winter walking festival in the Scottish Highlands doesn’t phase me in the least. Company founder and expert guide Tim Francis sorts me out with the missing kit (with help from Tiso and Páramo), I pack my bag and we’re all set. And then the Big Day breaks.

The Friday had naturally been a crystal clear winter day (pictured above), with blue skies, frozen lochs to traipse around and songbirds singing from leafless branches. Come Saturday, the same birds are being blown clear across to Europe and the scene that greets us at our starting point in the Cairngorms is like a cold version of a Hieronymus Bosch painting (pictured below), except that everyone has sensibly packed up and left.

Nevertheless, we strike out for an elevated plateau where deep snow awaits us, and make it as far as the end of the ski resort’s parking lot before gale force winds stop us in our tracks. Two passing ski lift operators laugh at us, and we realise it’s only the icy concrete making movement impossible. We ascend to crunchier snow and stride forth, making somewhat better progress. Leading the way is experienced guide Chris, who cheerfully leads our small group up between boulders and across treacherous patches of frozen moss as if we’re skipping along a stream on a summer’s day. The wind and driving snow are unrelenting, and soon it’s time to don ski goggles (check, by the way), tuck in snoods and give up on trying to use tissues.

We make slow but steady progress up out of the ski area, but the wind seems to increasing with every step we take. The thought of attempting to dig a snow shelter with a portable shovel in Scotland’s answer to the hurricane begins to nag in the back of our minds, yet still we forge ahead. Now alone except for a nearby group of mountain rescue volunteers practising, um, avalanche skills, we start to climb along an exposed ridge. It’s early afternoon, though it feels like night is already setting in. Reaching the top the ridge, we pause to regroup, then head for the summit.

To be continued…

Read the second instalment here.