Plan was to leave from Strathpeffer and ride some of the Puffer trails, past, though on the other side of the river from, Rogie falls, round Loch Garve and make our way to Garve itself to meet anyone else at the official meeting place at the food van.
As it was it ended up just being Brian and myself. We started the morning in much milder conditions than the last few days, still very cold but not quite freezing, snow on the high ground was melting away as we watched, due to higher temp but also due to the almost constant rain. It was certainly wet throughout, mostly just that lightish but constant drizzle, with the ground being well muddy, slushy and boggy depending on surface.
A good bit of climbing for the first part before we followed the river before crossing over the trails to Loch Garve. As we were descending to loch level there is a section of trail that a stream runs across, there's a waterfall just upstream that is normally a trickle, well, with the snowmelt and all the rain it was a thundering torrent of water, only now as it was squeezing across the road, funnelling a fair bit of force. This was despite it spreading along the trail. Brian walked through to be safe as we know it is paved with large rocks, whilst I rode through but had to dab just near the end. Thanks fully it was quick as it was up to my shins but thankfully no real water got in my boots, so all good. Brian unfortunately had to wring his woollen socks out before we went any further. Far too cold to ignore wet feet.
It took a couple of hours I think to get to the meeting place where we waited in the rain, eating a healthy lunch of bacon rolls and chips washed down with hot coffee. It was more about getting hot into us rather than sustenance. We waited a while but on this side of the range it was pretty dreach (?) It was constant rain, even while we sat at a picnic bench eating lunch, and the wind was really whipping up. We decided we would head back over the first lot of hills back past the loch and hopefully it would be less exposed once over the first lot of hills. This meant back past the flooded section of trail. We were surprised with how much more of the trail was flooded since we were here before, which was only a couple of hours at most. Brian rolled up his trousers and picked the Pugs up and walked across, I decided that rather than ride through, as it was so forceful now and there was the matter of a drop of the other edge if I was washed down it, to climb my way across on the debris catching timber whilst holding onto the deer fence. Sounds like a plan but was actually not one of my better ideas, especially when trying to fight the water so I could drag my Pugs along behind me, with my feet getting stuck in the timber, the deer fence slackening and then to find the last 3 feet was a separate loose bit of timber. I didn't fall in so it was comedic, which it would have also been for Brian if I had fallen in I suppose
We then powered up the climb from the loch, must have been the chips
and zig zagged our way on the various trails and tracks back to the start. Once back in the forest and climbing up the mountain I began getting pretty hot, went to unzip my jacket a bit, only to have my zip fall apart in my hand and my jacket flapping about, thankfully it was only about 1/2 mile before the end, so glass half full and all that Thanks Brian for another grand day out, it might have been wet and cold but we were prepared and we were riding our Pugsleys so it couldn't be anything but good.
Hope everyone else gets a decent ride out this weekend, wrap up warm and enjoy.
Jamie
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