Cameron McNeish - Theres Always the Hills

Adorned with woolly bonnet, walking poles and rucksack, Cameron McNeish can be recognised by his silhouette alone. The most highly respected voice now speaking for and from Scotlands mountains, and their most instantly recognisable figure, his knowledge and expertise derives from his every footstep on every remote Munro and Corbett, and his crossing of each mountain burn. Bodach nam Beann could have given me sound advice when I first discovered the hills for myself...

The icy surface stretched before me, sloping down across a rock shelf to the cliff edge, a fatal ice slide for the unwary hiker. I could barely see a few metres ahead in the mist, and the snow was beginning to fall again. Behind me a white uneven landscape, covering the rocks and gaps between them, would make my eventual retreat slow and tentative. Only my footprints to this point indicated a safe way back and they were already filling with fresh snow. Sheltering behind a boulder, knowing that the summit cairn of Schiehallion was only metres away, I fingered the small pink stone in my pocket, quartz hard enough to cut glass, picked up an hour or so earlier to add to the summit cairn.

A local taxi had dropped me beside the single track road at Braes of Foss, next to a group of trees that partially hid the mountain. I had practically rolled out of the front seat, my head fuzzy with last nights birthday celebrations and a long week of filming in the outdoors. In my tweed hip flask was a drop of the smoky whisky Id been given as a birthday present, a memento from a fellow mountain enthusiast after my first (failed) ascent of a Munro a few months earlier. There had been a few since, and it had become a tradition to take a nip or two after reaching the peak, easing the journey down. Now though, the thought of alcohol was not so appealing.

I considered whether an attempt across the icy surface was worth the risk.

In reasonable hiking boots, several base layers and a technical winter jacket, I wasnt feeling cold, although my hands would turn bright red - then white - if I took them out of my gloves for too long. Id been in this situation before when I foolishly tried to climb Ben Lomond in the snow with no crampons. The closest Munro to Glasgow, it is a popular climb in summer but hazardous in winter. Lost somewhere on the mountains Ptarmigan+ ridge, its lower peak, I climbed too high before losing my balance and sliding downwards for twenty to thirty metres. Digging my raw and frozen fingers into the snow to break the descent I realised that, displaced only a few metres to the right, I could easily have slipped off the mountain. I had become one of those people: foolish, dangerous. The mountains need respect and I resolved to always be not only cautious but also prepared. Then I would enjoy their great heights all the more, and adventure even further into their lesser known world.