Late winter in Wester Ross can throw everything at a mountain and so it was this weekend when we tackled Liathach with Dan and his friends. Hail, snow, bright warming sunshine, strong winds, gusts, hard ice, soft snow and dry rock below about 900m. Luckily the wind and hail held off during the scramble over The Pinnacles mid-way along the ridge. The large picture below shows the group on the western Munro top Mullach an Rathain with views west to Beinn Alligin. Two winter munros, a classic west-coast scramble in spring conditions, a mixture of snow, ice and rock and sunshine through the afternoon - what a day.

Tags: Liathach, Winter, Wester Ross

Go Further clients have experienced a series of special days on some of the north’s most famous peaks in perfect winter conditions.



In the first half of the month we found ourselves on Slioch - just north of Loch Maree (in the distance in the picture above with Torridon in the background). Here the group are just hitting the snow line at about 1500 feet.



Later that week we moved south to Torridon where this picture was taken of the the main Beinn Eighe ridge from the Liathach ridge. For more details on Torridon see here.



Liathach is a special mountain at any time of the year but, combined with An Teallach and Beinn Eighe, can there be a better series of winter summits to aim for on the Scottish mainland?

Another great day out is to tackle the Black Carls on the Beinn Eighe Ridge - one of the best Wester Ross scrambles and, in the winter, a great mountaineering adventure. Here the group is heading onto the main ridge...



...and here (below) we are heading towards the start of the Carls.

Tags: Liathach, Beinn Eighe, torridon, Slioch, Winter, mountaineering

Truly incredible winter conditions started early in Wester Ross and hardly changed through to mid-January. This picture looks directly south into the sun just after the shortest day of 2009 just after Christmas. In the middle is An Teallach’s Sgurr Fiona with the pinnacled ridge running to the left and the Western ridge on the right. Conditions were heavy going during this spell with a lot of fresh snow and little consolidation.

Tags: Winter, An Teallach

Although forecast for broken sunshine, December 29th brought a long spell of miserable horizontal hail and sleet. Winter days like this present their own challenges such as difficult navigation while staying out of the worst winds. For example, on Thursday Helen, Simon and Tom were undaunted by the early conditions and wanted to stick to our plan of a winter skills day on An Teallach. After reaching the top of Mac is Mathair in a howling gale we crossed the plateau north of the main summits well above the cloud level to the coll just north of Bidein a' Ghlas Thuill - one of the two An Teallach munros. The wind was far less fierce here and the cloud broke for us long enough to get a view of the vast Glass Tholl corrie. As the weather eased we reached that top before descending back to the coll (pictured). After practising some ice axe arrests, we then dropped down the long path North East to Dundonnell. The whole day took about nine hours. Check out our winter pages for more options.

Tags: An Teallach, Winter

Winter Solstice in the North West Hightlands was spectacular this year. Not a breath of wind, wall to wall sunshine and bitterly cold in the shade. It was a stunning end to a long, dry, cold and sunny spell of fantastic rock climbing weather. In the picture (which was taken at about 1pm on Winter Solstice) Colin is standing on one of the many gneiss boulders that are a feature of the Gruinard, Poolewe and Gairloch area. Very often these large boulders are found on, or near to, the summits of small hills near the major rivers or near other natural features. Some of us find it difficult to believe that these boulders are simply the result of natural erosion. It's almost as if they were carefully positioned for reasons long forgotten. The one above is near the summit of Carn na Glaic Buidhe above Badlurach and the one below is found on the knoll just south of the Carnmore bothy.

Tags: solstice, Winter

This weekend saw some stormy cold weather sweep over the North West bringing some wild winter conditions to the higher tops. This picture, taken yesterday, is from the summit of Sgurr Fiona on An Teallach looking south to Gleann Na Muice.The strong south westerly brought significant snow showers that settled above 800 meters.

The picture below was taken from near the summit of Sgurr Creag an Eich along the North West Ridge of An Teallach. The furthest point on this ridge that you can see is the 760 meter summit - Sgurr Ruadh. Half way along the ridge you can make out the Coastguard Rescue helicopter which set down to drop off members of Dundonnell Mountain Rescue Team. These pictures were taken during a training exercise with DMRT.

Tags: An Teallach, Winter