It's always a promising start to a days winter climbing when the turf in the garden is frozen solid and the car windows caked in ice. It was -1C at Sea Level in Fort William and -4.5C in the lively, but not mentally busy, car park for Beinn Udlaidh at 0830 this morning.

The crag was in good, not amazing, but decent shape with various complete lines in the grade III-V range. With lots of in-situ threads, solid ice, blue skies and good craic the atmosphere was more continental than Highland, who needs cogne when Scotland is this good...

We climbed Emerald Eyes (stiff III), South Gully of the Black Wall (soft IV) and Peter Pan Direct, Jenny's first Grade V.

More Photos from Beinn Udlaidh today

Alan Kimber climbed 0.5 Gully on Ben Nevis today (with an alpine start) and reported Bon conditions...