After a week of sustained grade V ice climbing John and I fancied a big alpine style route.

We met and passed the freezing level about half way up the long journey to the summit of Stob Coire Nam Beith via 'Deep Cut Chimney' (IV). This meant some soft and wet, but pleasant, ice low down and a few moves of entertaining wet tooling to get around the routes massive chockstone.

The left hand branch of the upper chimney was barely iced and thus a bit scrappy so we enjoyed the fine iced turf chimneys on the right hand branch. After 7 pitches we made the transition from Scottish winter climbing to alpine mountaineering and moved together for the easy snowy mixed ground to gain the summit and golden views across to Mull and Iona. The highest peak in Argyll had given us a great days mountaineering once again.

More photos from the days winter climbing in Glencoe.