Still snowing in Cairngorm

Einich at work

February has been a month of travelling between the Lakes, Glencoe and the Cairngorms. We have been blessed with fantastic snow conditions and great weather. This last week I have been in the Cairngorms with SARDA (Lakes) training Einich to locate people buried in Avalanches. We had a group of hard working volunteers who didn't mind being buried in snowholes several feet below the surface and wait for the dogs to come and find them. The dogs located them by picking up an air born scent which filtered up from the snow, they then dig and bark to locate the source. It's great to see how quickly a dog can pick up a scent and home in on it. All the dogs did really well. By midweek a fresh snowfall arrived which was enough to closed the ski area for a couple of days. We seem to have been digging all week.