A grand day out

As the forecast was for clear skies, we decided to get out hillwalking. As I have said before, I want to see the view from all the Munros before I compleat them. Mayer and Dreish, to the west of Glen Clova, are two hills, which we had been up before, but in less than ideal weather. Tuesday was somewhat different with fine weather and only high clouds to the west and north. We parked in the Forestry Commission car park at the head of Glen Clova and set off for Coire Fee, to ascend Mayer first. The weather reminded me of a New Zealand winter's day as it was warm in the glen but cool on the tops. For the first time this year I wore shorts for hillwalking. It was really pleasant walking to Coire Fee but I couldn't really understand why people were dressed in full winter gear for a walk in the glens; they must have been roasting. After a quick lunch just after the trees, we walked up to the snowline at about 525 metres, where we met a group who were making heavy weather of descending. It turned out they had not liked their route of ascent and had turned back. They must have thought we needed advice and said that as there were only two of us we might get up to the plateau. Anyway, I put on my Ron Hills and we put our crampons on and then followed the line of the path. It was quite steep at one point but the obvious way up; they had been lower where it wasn't as nice. There then followed a long slog over the unbroken snow to the top of Mayer. There really has been a lot of snow this winter and with the wind the east and north east aspects are loaded whereas the south and south west faces are much less snowy. One down and one to go. We soon removed our crampons, as the slopes to Dreish had been in the sun all day and were a little softer and even had some open ground in places. This is a view of my wife going up the slope towards the summit, with Beinn a'Ghlo in the background. It was quite a good day for wildlife, with a couple of Ptarmigan near the summit, a Golden Plover at 900 metres, some Snow Bunting and a Mountain Hare. We had an uneventful trip back in lovely evening light to the glen. A grand day out, but no Wensleydale was eaten. The other party must have gutted to miss out.