Hill of Fare
The first "training" walk of 2017 started off on a bright, sunny Friday afternoon. Our leader, Ken Black, had gently tried to steer us away from doing the planned walk along Hill of Fare from Echt to Raemoir in view of the likely underfoot conditions, but us tenderfoots wanted to carry on with Plan A. Ian Sharp had to withdraw at the last minute, so it was just the five of us who set off in 3 cars, leaving 2 of them at the Raemoir end and piling in to Ken's car for the journey to the start of the walk at the Echt end. The trail at the start was a little muddy but there was no real indication of how tricky conditions would become later in the walk. We headed straight up the hill to the radio mast and first cairn, where we took the traditional team photo: Dave Williamson, Ian Stewart, Ken Black, Colin Kilgour and John McWhinnie The photo shows the underfoot conditions at this point. The snow had started to build up but it got worse as we followed the landrove...