The snow may have been scarce, but a forecast of wall-to-wall sunshine meant that spirits were high as our group of 10 made their way into Glen Affric’s Strawberry Cottage variously by bike and 4×4. Once gathered and introductions made, the great debate commenced – to ski or not to ski? Despite much craning of necks and photo taking on the way in, no one was much the wiser as to the chance of a decent line. Clearly we were just going to have to take our skis for a walk and have a look. With the prospect of a big day, we were all early to bed to make the most of the promised good conditions.

Saturday dawned cold, bright and sunny, with Strawberry Cottage a glorious spot to enjoy the views and firm up plans. Some arm twisting from Scott persuaded Emma and Matt to join him for a run around the five Munros to the north and east of the cottage. Michael, Hannah, Caro, Ryan and Cat opted to try their luck with A’ Chralaig to the south, which despite looking a long way away was at least reasonably white up high. Meanwhile Al and Roy decided to chance their luck with the hills and corries directly above the cottage.

The A’ Chralaig crew battled their way for 8km up the Uisge na Cralaig, overcoming semi frozen bog, icy river crossings and inconvenient deer fences, finally getting skis on at 850m in the coire directly below the summit.  With a short skin up easier terrain, the group gained the north ridge and summit cairn, yielding fantastic views. Sadly, the descent that followed was not quite as fantastic in somewhat crusty and challenging snow, but a great and fun adventure nonetheless that all agreed had been worth the long approach.

Meanwhile Al and Roy headed up the path to An Socach, finding enough snow for a ski from the summit down the north-east ridge to the bealach. A hike up and over the shoulder of Mam Sodhail led to a good line into Coire Coulavie, ending far down the floor of the coire via some combat skiing. Snow conditions definitely seemed to be much better on this side of the glen. There wasn’t enough about though to hamper the three runners, who didn’t even need their microspikes as they enjoyed glorious conditions up high to make swift work of Mam Sodhail, Carn Eighe, Beinn Fhionnlaidh, Tom a’ Choinnich and Toll Creagach.

Reunited at the cottage that evening we swapped tales and demolished a curry feast and an excellent crumble. A risqué version of exploding kittens (it’s a card game, don’t worry – no kittens were harmed) raised eyebrows and much amusement before we retired, all being officially “goosed” from the day’s adventures.

Sunday morning the cottage was surrounded by a dense and freezing fog, with the River Affric icing over outside. Breakfast consisted of various surprisingly palatable concoctions of leftover rice, custard and crumble, including the newly discovered Aberdonian delicacy of “reece crème”.

It wasn’t long before glimpses of sunny peaks started to emerge out of the fog and it was clear we were in for a stunner of a day. After Saturday’s exertions, the whole group decided to head for the nearby Corbett Carn a’ Choire Ghairbh. Once the cottage was cleaned and packed up we all set off, following a gentle stalkers’ path above the fog and frosted trees, with fantastic views of the mist slowly clearing in the glen.

Lunch was enjoyed in the sun at the summit, spotting our ski tracks from the day before with the help of some camera zoom. What was described as a “technical descent” then followed as the group attempted to all get down the sheet ice path unscathed (not 100% successfully). The light through the pines was just beautiful as we made our way out along the loch by foot, bike and van to the car park to say our goodbyes after a great weekend. Driving homewards the mist closed in around us by Cannich – Strawberry Cottage had definitely been the place to be!