A Journey in the Snow

We had planned to drive into Fort William today, a two-hour journey mostly down winding, single-track roads, but changed our minds when we saw that it had snowed overnight and that more snow was arriving by the minute. Instead....

....we caught the once-a-day Shiel bus service with driver Martin, who had a better chance of getting through than we had in our small car. I can't say that we envied him the job as the snow was, as it always is, at its worst round the back of Ben Hiant.

Martin's job wasn't helped by the lack of grit on the road. We finally met the gritting truck just short of Camas nan Geall, when Martin stopped for a short chat with the driver about the conditions ahead.

The road after it had been gritted and scraped wasn't much better. Ardnamurchan's problem is that we have relatively little snow through the winter, so the resources available for the occasional blanket are very limited.

Our route took us through Glen Tarbert, which looked more like the Rockies in winter than Ardnamurchan.

Such is the fickleness of the local climate that, by the time we returned in the afternoon - this picture shows Camas nan Geall - the snow had disappeared from everywhere except the highest tops. Instead it was raining, the wind had moved further into the north, and risen, giving us gusts to force 6.