New Years camping in the cold 2012 - Bridge of Orchy

It was around this very time last year that Shona took the Coleman Bedrock to test in some harsh winter conditions. Whilst we were only a few minutes from the warmth of the Kings House Hotel on Rannoch moor the minus temperatures and snow flurries were doing their best to make our camping a miserable experience.

This year we took to the wilderness a day early and drove up to Bridge of Orchy on New Years day. It had been wet most of the afternoon and the ground that we were pitching upon was a little bit sodden, but with the extra defence of my homemade footprint we had some hope of keeping things dry below the groundsheet. Using light from my car headlamps we pitched our usual Karrimor Beta geodesic tent (of which we have 2, they're that good!)and got our kit inside ready for a nice snuggly New Years night under the stars.

Well, the rain continued to fall. I lay listening to the sound of it getting stronger then sometimes easing off before drumming hard against the flysheet once more. Eventually with the help of Balvenie single malt I nodded off. At some point during the night I remember waking to hear that the rain had calmed down considerably. Yes, it still seemed to be raining but sounded much softer than the previous battering we had been experiencing.

Our plan was to wake early and perhaps climb Beinn Dorain and Beinn an Dothaidh. That was not going to happen, by morning we were going to be digging our way out of Bridge of Orchy! With quite a surprise I unzipped the inner tent flaps to see that there was snow piled up on all sides of the flysheet. After kicking away most of the drifted snow we managed to get out of the tent and take in the pristine white surroundings. The car was rather well hidden under snow, and a little further along some other campers were trying to dig out their VW campervan with kayaks on it's roof.

Looking up at the two hills, Dorain and an Dothaidh it was only just possible to make out the bealach through the snow clouds. I had forgotten to bring along Alfie's dog coat so climbing in these conditions was out of the question. It was going to be a chore just getting onto the main road. After breakfast and once we had packed everything and the dogs into the car we made our attemp at escaping Bridge of Orchy. Initially we turned left and began heading for Glen Coe, hoping that things might brighten up. On Rannoch moor things began to get really grim and by Kings House Hotel we took the decision to turn around and head to Tyndrum while we still could.

Halfway between Bridge of Orchy and Tyndrum, a coach several cars in front of us made an enormous sway and slide along the road. Ending up sideways blocking most of both lanes, we were lucky to be in a position to make it around the front of the stricken coach and onwards to Tyndrum.

By Tyndrum things were much more civilised. It looked like the day was warming up and alot of the snow here was resceding. After a short break at the Green Welly Stop, we decided to try taking the lower Loch Awe road towards the coast where the snow would be less likely to hinder our progress. We took a nice drive over the Connel Bridge and up to Fort William, the weather here was quite good compared with what we had witnessed earlier.

Heading back down to Glen Coe we were planning on striking camp by the Kings House Hotel, just like last year. When we got to the access road by the Glen Etive crossroads, the snow was falling steadily again and arriving at the camping ground I noted that we were the only ones planning on camping here. Not wishing to be stuck on our own on at the end of the single track access road, we decided to abort our mission and head back to our warm home comforts in the lowlands.