Colour can be in short supply during the average Scottish winter. Whether it’s due to low cloud, mist or rain, or invariably all three at the same time, we spend much of the winter under a blanket of grey that drains anything bright and sharp from the landscape. Ours is a muted world made of different hues of grey, brown and green. This inevitably means that when something colourful does finally come along it stands out with all the subtlety of a nuclear explosion. Waking up after weeks of dreichness to find a sparkling blue sky in the morning is…

Snow was tickling the inland hills when I arrived at the ruined chapel at Kilmarie on the Craignish peninsula. It was early December and melancholy-grey; the sea and sky stilled after a weekend of violent storms. All was now holding its breath before a proper fall of snow. Overhead the sound of crows’ wing-beats and a curlew’s whoop seemed amplified. Despite planes going over, the fishing boats out again after the storm, a radio playing on a nearby building site, there was a sense of ancientness here amidst the glister of wet rock and mottled gravestones, their ownership gradually being…

Whilst we’re still fairly early in the season I thought it might be worthwhile to spend a little time examining a specific winter excursion. I’m besotted with the challenges and rewards that winter conditions bring to the Scottish Hills, and I know I’m not alone. But there is a lot that can go wrong, and quickly too, so I think it’s really worth reviewing each time we go out, to see where we could have improved our day, making it safer, more enjoyable, or ideally both. I’m going to use an example of a day out a friend and I…