I had the day off work and decided to go for a solo walk up the four Glen Strathfarrar Munros. The weather had been very mild for February, and having been up a few Corbetts the week before I knew there wasn’t much snow on the hills. I still packed winter kit (ice axe and crampons) out of an abundance of caution, and felt fairly confident having taken a winter skills course the year before and made sure to practice those skills earlier in the season. I quickly checked the avalanche forecast, which was low in all areas and aspects. I also briefly thought about route planning and avalanche safety – I would be up on ridges almost all day, and felt comfortable with that. The walk in mostly confirmed this – there was only a few small snow patches up to 1000m, although I did spot bigger snow accumulations on the far side of a corrie.

An uneventful start

The walk along the ridge was fairly uneventful, covering wet mossy ground with only a couple of snow patches – mostly avoidable, all soft and none very deep. By the time I got to the final Munro (Sgùrr Fhuar-thuill), I was feeling pretty tired, but was on track with about two hours of daylight left to get down. Descending to the bealach with Sgùrr na Fearstaig, I noticed the corrie below had bigger and deeper snow patches than the ridge. On the way down, I was initially just annoyed as postholing through the wet snow made progress fairly slow. I noticed some small snowballs rolling down the steep rocky slope and thought this would be a bad time to slip.

Tired decision-making

A few minutes along the path down the corrie, I heard a continuous wet sloshing sound. I initially thought it was a stream, but knew there wasn’t any marked on the map nearby. Listening more closely I realised I was hearing an avalanche – the sound continued for about 20 seconds and then stopped. At this point I was tired, had soaking wet feet from walking through snow, and was caught up in the hope of getting down to the road as directly and quickly as possible. I knew the ground I was traversing was steep, with significant snow accumulations in patches, but the alternative of retracing my steps to pick an alternative route over pathless ground was unappealing. I continued the route I had originally planned, passing the remains of two avalanches along the way, as well as some snow fields which I very carefully picked my way through. I made it down to shallower ground and got back to the road with plenty of daylight.

Humbling experience

In hindsight I was lucky to have gotten away with it. If the avalanche I heard had not gone off naturally just before I passed through, I would have likely triggered it. Any of the other undisturbed snow fields I passed could also have avalanched, best case scenario taking me off my feet, worst case resulting in serious injury. I had continued into a dangerous situation due to my own tired state, the lack of a partner to discuss with, and the existence of a pre-made plan and lack of alternatives – all textbook human factors in poor avalanche decision making. I was also lulled into a false sense of security by superficial planning – although most of the day was on ridges, the corrie walls had slopes of 25°-40° (the avalanche goldilocks zone). The avalanche forecast for a nearby region, although low overall, mentioned wet snow as a risk factor. While avalanche safety had been discussed during my winter skills training, the conditions were very different – I had much better awareness of risks such as windslab and cornices than wet snow. Knowing nothing can be dangerous but knowing a little bit even more so!

Overall it was a humbling experience for me, and a good day to learn from. I just felt lucky I was able to chalk it up to experience without any more serious consequences!