Snow Joke

Finally I had run out of excuses and so, at last, we met up in Newtonmore for a walk in the hills and the official start of the Bike & Hike training. The road up to Shepherd's bridge was fairly covered in snow and ice but this proved no problem for Murray, who had cunningly engineered a flat tyre at just the right time. On arrival it did, however, prove difficult to shut his car door and he confided in us that it had fallen off earlier that week. I helpfully enquired whether a door was actually an MOT requirement. Apparently it is.



Glen Banchor is very scenic in its winter coat and we managed to give it the appreciation it deserved by moving at the stately pace of 1.5 miles per hour. All of us except Murray's dog Penny, she covered about twenty times the ground that we did with at least fifty times the enthusiasm!



During the decent we had enough time to practice our ice axe breaking and pioneer some new techniques for this essential winter skill which, to the casual observer, may have appeared to consist of flailing about like a helicopter in trouble and landing in a heap, head-first in a snow drift. No doubt we will be out once again, when the bruises have healed.