"'Twas a wild and windy morning. The tumbleweed rolled down the high street of Strachan, the gusts lifted the passing grannies off their feet, and the coos cowered in the byre as your brave reporter set off for the guide hut to await the arrival of the rest of this week's Famous Five, with a number of last week's Magnificent Seven feeling a little less magnificent in the presence of some larger Beaufort Numbers. Bob Elder, John Perry, Ian Sharp and Dick Taylor duly arrived and a discussion of potential routes rapidly converged, with remarkable similarity of thinking, onto a jaunt into the depths of Blackhall; in along the south river bank, with options for a simple retreat or a climb up to the south and return along one of the parallel forest tracks, and using the trees and north-facing aspect to break the south-westerly wind.
So it was over the Bridge of Dee and a sharp right through
the arch onto the fishing beat track. The frozen conditions of yesterday
had eased noticeably and good progress was made, with the wind-avoidance tactic
working well. There was a brief stop to admire the view from one of the fishing
lodges before turning south to the gravel pits, on the approach to which we
first discovered that all might not be well with the substrate. John,
with a bit of an "oh-oh", and then more of an "oof",
suddenly rolled left as his bike skidded right, after first catching the back
of Jeff's bike and thus introducing him to some gorse apparently requiring
closer inspection. Investigation of the track revealed that the shininess at
this spot wasn't the mere wetness we'd experienced thus far, but some
honest-to-goodness ice.
Having picked up and dusted off John, and now forewarned, we
set off up the main track further into the forest and decided to take the first
left and so pick up the lowest parallel road as a return route. This involved
some undulating climbing, not long into which we discovered how far (or, in
fact, how little) the "freezing line" had moved up the hill. We
encountered a number of very icy patches, resulting in a number of dismounts of
varying degrees of elegance and control. Dick attempted to replicate
John's earlier manoeuvre, and succeeded in demonstrating that the rear section
of his front mudguard wasn't up to the rigours of a Freewheelers expedition.
Without further incident we made if back to the Blackhall road, and then headed
for the Falls of Feugh.
A Feugh based coffee plan was scuppered by their seasonal
closure, so pausing only for a quick selfie on the bridge, we retreated to
Tease. No scones, but some damn fine Bakewell Tart inevitably created the
obligatory dose of innuendo. A good outing given the conditions, with
probably the best possible route choice fully achieving the required shelter
from the wind even if proving a little icier than ideal higher up the hills.
And it didn't rain or snow, which was a bonus!"
Route overview courtesy of John P:
Team photo at the Feugh courtesy, as usual, of Dick. Not sideways this time, but upside down:
Blogspot doesn't like the way Dick takes the photos with his phone. I tried various things to amend it and this was my next attempt:
Still not right - one final attempt:
That's better!
Dick also supplied the Strava stats - https://www.strava.com/activities/241313455
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