Mayar & Driesh.......finally!
Every year for about the past 4 years I have been down to organise a DHC walk up Mayar and Driesh in late January and failed due to the weather; too much snow and/or wind etc. Instead we’ve done local walks, gone up Peters Hill or gone cross country skiing. This year I insisted that if I was going to have another attempt I wanted to do it in November when the weather would be better. The date was set for the 5th November.
The forecast for the day wasn’t great: very strong winds and a wind chill of -18 degrees so I wondered if the weather was about to strike again. However on Saturday morning 6 of us (Chris, Graham, myself and three people new to DHC, Karen, John and Steve) set off to give it a go. Even walking through the Glendoll woods at the start of the walk we were aware of how windy it was. We had an early bite to eat in the shelter of the forest before going out into the open. The corrie on the way up was beautiful as it was all covered in snow. Once on the plateau the wind really hit us and we struggled across to Mayar, barely able to move at times, but did successfully make the top, where it was just too windy to take photos.
On the top of Mayar we decided to keep the wind behind us and headed east to the path that went down to the Shank of Dumfollow. On reaching the path we stopped for some lunch sheltering behind some boulders.
Over lunch, when it wasn’t snowing, we had amazing views of the snow being picked up by the wind and being rolled across the hill side in waves.
After lunch we decided to attempt Driesh. However it quickly became apparent that Karen and I were barely able to move in the wind so we beat a retreat back down the path leaving the stronger guys to continue their battle with the wind to successfully reach the top of Driesh.
Once we had all met back up at the car park we returned home via the hotel for a well-earned cup of tea and scones (Left-Right in picture below are, Chris, Steve, John, Ruth, Karen and Graham).
Ruth
