Clova Circuit

Another epic day out was planned for us. Mel was wanting to have her own awesome winter day out doing something a bit more technical as the conditions are so good just now. But, its so cool how she's always thinking about us. She tells us she feels guilty about having a whole day on the hill doing something where we can't come along, so lucky for us she always tries her best to work us into the plans... and boy its one of the biggest days out on the hills we've ever had. At first we are totally elated, I don't think we'd ever seen so much snow. We played & rolled & tumbled & jumped about, running in all directions. 

Me 'n' my Dawg... well one of them!

 Tho after 3 or 4 hours of trekking through deep snow and still ascending, it suddenly struck us that we weren't just on one of our normal walks and maybe it was best to conserve some energy and settle in for the long haul!

A perfectly placed stone mountain shelter was a welcome place to rest and get some sustenance, out of the wind and driving snow. Although Finn decided the best spot to sit was right infront of the gap between the door & the stone wall where the blizzard was still managing to blow through....his face all masked in snow with icicle eyebrows!

Davy's Bourach

Another hour or so of trudging through even deeper snow and massive drifts was hard going for us as we struggled to be able to bound through it. After a while we sussed it was much easier for us to walk behind and follow in the footsteps rather than trying to make our own tracks. Altho we were so tight on their heels we kept getting knocked on the chin, still didn't learn after 12 miles to just take a pace back! Finally we top out up onto a great flat high plateau, good times you'd think but it offered us no protection from the weather, high winds and driving hard snow in our faces, we keep our heads down and plod on. Mel occassionally stops to wipe our faces as our fur is freezing up around our eyes and mouth. We look like Northern Inuit dogs in the harsh Arctic conditions, but we dont have their fur! Its sooooooo cold! Everytime we stop, we hunker down to try and protect ourselves from the chilling wind. On we keep going, walking blind first because of bad visibility then the fading light of the twilight hours. The last couple of hours we walked by the light of a head torch, glad to be back down on relatively flat ground but still a long way from the car. The depth of the snow lessens but even if we wanted to, we have no energy left to run about daft like we normally do. At last, the Ranger Centre lights come into view... and the car, never felt so happy to see the car. We slept the whole way home that night... and the next 2 days.