In the winter of '81, it was -20C on the streets in Edinburgh so I got the train to Aviemore and went ice climbing, camping just below the peak of Ben MacDui. Superb weather, bright blue skies, really hard ice in the corries, dry snow.It must have been a wee bit warmer than our day with you last Saturday Connor! You'd have had blue knees!
Thanks for organising the day, we all enjoyed it.
During the night it fell to -40C on the top of the Ben where I was. A helicopter arrived at dawn, to pick up two others who had died during the night, apparently camping a few hundred yards away in sleeping bag that was bit too thin.
After the chopper left, a chap in his late 50s came striding up in his kilt, tweed jacket, cap and a scarf, with a wee dog jumping through the snow. He said it did the walk every day from Aviemore. No ski lift job, but walked up from the bottom. We chatted for a few minutes, then off he went. Kilts are warm, never knew they were that warm.
There is very nice garden in Inveresk, of a house occupied by a former lawyer, who is in his 90s and still gardening, and when talking to him recently, we came to talk of that winter and I mentioned this event; he knew the name straight away, seems quite a well known gentlemen for doing many a bold thing in his kilt.


