This weekend was the Edinburgh Young Walkers (EYW) Xmas walk and dinner. The original plan had been to head to Melrose to do the Eildon Hills. However, given the amount of snow which had fallen this week, the roads weren't the safest, so we opted for a jaunt to the Pentlands instead! I was looking forward to seeing how snowy the Pentland were....and I wasn't disappointed. We started at the Flotterstone Inn car park and headed up the first hill of the usual loop. The sun was making the hills look a beautiful orange colour and the snow was indeed thick. The higher we got, the more spectacular the views and the deeper the snow. The final climb to the top of the hill was tough going, with the snow up to our knees!We had great views from the top and had time for a bit of a coffee stop while looking over the snow covered land around. I started to feel the cold big time at this point and made the decision to cut back down with a few others while the rest of the group pushed on to the next one.
Any thoughts of getting down quickly were dashed as we were faced with some of the deepest snow I've ever know. We couldn't walk across it as we just fell through, and it was too powdery to slide down. We were trying to reach the main path to the resevoir at the bottom, which took us well over an hour of effort. With a mixture of rolling, walking, sliding (both head and feet first) and falling we made it back onto the path! Me and Ellis powered it back along the path to the Flotterstone in an attempt to warm up, while the other two made an EYW snowman. I was glad to get into the warm pub for a hot coffee. I still marvel at the fact only 10 minutes drive from my front door I can have a day in the hills like this...amazing!!
The EYW Xmas dinner at the Spoon Cafe later was a welcome feast...Xmas is officially here :-).Any thoughts of getting down quickly were dashed as we were faced with some of the deepest snow I've ever know. We couldn't walk across it as we just fell through, and it was too powdery to slide down. We were trying to reach the main path to the resevoir at the bottom, which took us well over an hour of effort. With a mixture of rolling, walking, sliding (both head and feet first) and falling we made it back onto the path! Me and Ellis powered it back along the path to the Flotterstone in an attempt to warm up, while the other two made an EYW snowman. I was glad to get into the warm pub for a hot coffee. I still marvel at the fact only 10 minutes drive from my front door I can have a day in the hills like this...amazing!!
