Loch Ness

Apothecary7, Maeve the Deerhound and I had occasion to drive North today.

We set off early, having heard that there could be snow on the A9. Sure enough just South of Pitlochry we found the first snow on the road. By the time we were just North of the town we were driving on snow and there was thick snow from the sides of the road to the tops of the hills. More snow was falling and the wind was very strong.

We continued North and passed a snow plough and a police car at the snow gates near Blair Atholl. For miles North of there we didn't have a vehicle behind us and it occurred to me that perhaps the gates had been closed. We did see some vehicles on the Southbound side from time to time.

We got over the pass at Drumochter and just North saw the jackknifed lorry that caused the closure of the road for a time later when its recovery took place. We had intended to turn off at Dalwhinnie and head West but it was obvious the no one had taken that route. There wasn't a single set of tyre tracks at the turn off and the snow looked very deep towards the town and the distillery.

We had caught up with some cars at this point and a police car joined the convoy and dictated a slow pace for a few miles until it turned round and went back South. Snow was still falling.

Some miles North the snow turned back to rain, the road turned back to black, and we were able to get back to normal driving for the Slochd summit and the run down to Inverness and from there down the A82 to Fort Augustus which was our destination. We heard later that other people making the journey had turned back before they reached Dalwhinnie.

The blip was taken from the road bridge across the Caledonian Canal in Fort Augustus and shows the canal's approach to the Southern end of Loch Ness.

On our return journey I was very happy to find that the rain and the traffic had made the road much easier to drive with no obvious snow to drive through. I was very glad about that as it was dark by the time we were heading over the high passes. There was still plenty of snow on the side at Drumochter and again at Pitlochry.