X-country skiing 2:45:00 [3]
Started to head to the Clash with J but rapidly decided that even if we could get there (unlikely) we probably wouldn't want to be there. So turned round and headed for Glen Tanar instead for what turned out to be something of an epic in itself. From Braeloine, headed out on reverse of Tues long run for 3 km, on tracks which had been driven by an ATV with wheel tracks just a bit too narrow to ski in. Headed left up the hill before the pond, towards Baudy Meg. ATV tracks stopped here as the drifts got deeper. Was quite hard work up the hill here, but nothing to the next section as we turned north up the steep slope, where there were waves of 1m+ drifts across the track every few m, which made for hard work side-stepping up across them. Once we got out of the trees the wind whipped up and blew us up the hill on wind-blown slab - wild but nice skiing at least briefly. Next we found the wind blowing us largely uncontrolled down through more drifts and rough arctic surfaces, with poor visibility. It felt like a wild remote mountain and was good that we know it so well, or it could have been quite worrying. A wierd feeling to be out of your comfort zone in somewhere so familiar. Eventually reached the start of the descent track, but even then we weren't out of trouble as there were more big soft drifts that were difficult to see until too late. Once we got into the trees the descent was actually really enjoyable with deep enough soft snow to mean we weren't going too fast. Back down the bottom it was hard to believe we'd just been through some testing conditions not much further up the hill.
Maybe not Geilo, but a bit of an adventure ;-)