After last weekends heavy snow and the deaths on the Buachaille it was decided that to do the Aonach Eagach Ridge on Saturday would have been a bit folly as there was still a lot of heavy wet snow clinging to the sides of the glen.
So club members Petronella Mart, Mark Stevens and me, Plus Ella's Romanian friend Mihai (pronounced me high) Udvar decided to walk up Coire nan Lochan under the dangerously snow ladened Gearr Aonnach to the top of Stob Coire nan Lochan. We then walked round the top of it in a clockwise direction before descending back down the same way.
It took us from 10am til 5.30m to do the whole thing, which was good considering the deep snow.
There were quite a lot of other people on the hill and many turned back, but we chose our route carefully avoiding as many snow fields as we could and taking it in turns to cross the more dangerous areas in single file.
Afterwards Ella, Mihai and I went to the Clachaig Inn for a drink, while party animal Mark headed back to Glasgow for a 25th birthday bash.
We spent Saturday night at the hut and the following day I dropped Mihai back in Fearnall near Killin where he was working as a volunteer for a couple of month following the first leg of his cycle ride from Romania across the top of Europe to Norway.
He told us he had then flown from Oslo to Newcastle where he left his bike with a relative (I think) and came to Scotland. I think he plans to cycle from Newcastle down though England France and go home via southern Europe maybe even going through Spain.
He said that after finishing his engineering degree last summer he set off in July on his bike packed with all his stuff which weighed 40kg and spent Christmas in Norway. He was quite used to the snow in Scotland after the minus 20 in Norway and his record in any one day was 120 miles. There are some pictures of his trip on www.freeridemihai.multiply.com.