As some of the boys had reached 40 last year a day out mountain biking in March was planned followed by the pub for the Scotland v England rugby. What we hadn’t counted on in planning was that we would have some of the most snow seen in years over the winter. In fact even on the morning we left we hadn’t planned on the snow being as bad.

We took the train up to Blair Atholl and set off on a 35km loop.

Very shortly though we were off the bikes and pushing.   Many vain attempts were made to cycle through it but it was too deep and soft to have a chance.

After  a break and 45 minutes of walking over snow and grassland we decided to cut the route short as we were only making speeds of about 3-4km/hr.  Fortunately Mark had been sensible enough to bring an OS map and we plotted a route across between 2 hills to get back onto the path on the return loop.  This was still looking at being another hour of pushing though judging the distance.  There was some slight descent in the ranks and murmurings about wether to turn back but being blokes no one was going to suggest it out loud.

We were rewarded with some stunning views at the crest of the ridge and as the weather was fantastic it was all worth while.  If it had been a few degrees colder and a bit wetter it would have been a far different day.  As it was you got a reminder of why Scotland has some  of the best places to visit in the world when all is well.

Once over the crest there was less snow on the other slope and we could begin to mountain bike back down over the grassland.  This was punctuated by the occasional drop into a small stream run off through the snow, funny for everyone but the rider!

On the way down we also saw a number of white hares and deer.

Finally we made it back to the track which was by now mainly clear and we could begin a fast ascent back to Blair Atholl.

After  a 3 hour ride/trek we were safely back in the pub in time for kick off on the rugby.

From the elevation/speed profile on my Garmin you can see we travelled about 19km and walked 10 of them!

Our route was a smaller loop than intended.