John Chivall, Outdoor Instructor

My friend Jamie had a day's annual leave to use, so on Monday we headed to Glen Coe for a walk. It was a warm day, and we were unsure how much snow we'd encounter. As it was we had to strip to t-shirts on the walk-in through the Lost Valley, and it was only once we'd passed the 600m contour that the chill north wind necessitated adding layers.

As we neared the Coire Gabhail headwall, we spied an open gully line on the south flank of Stob Coire Sgreamhach, which looked liked it would give a sporting almost direct line to the summit. The snow was soft and wet, but the slope looked well-bonded and stable, so we headed up, following occasional footsteps from previous ascents. The route gave us a couple of tricky moments moving around icy bulges, but despite the thawing snow, the turf underneath was well frozen.

Eventually the angle eased and we found ourselves standing on the ridge, only two minutes walk south-west of the summit. The temperature at 1000m was still above freezing, but below a ceiling of cloud we had clear views across the Black Mount and Glen Coe.

From the Munro summit of Stob Coire Sgreamhach, we followed the narrow ridge north-east towards Beinn Fhada. This steepened and narrowed to the top of a buttress overlooking a rocky between the hills. Carefully downclimbing a steep gully on the ridge's east side got us to the col, and from there we had a joyfully easy, airy and undulating ridge walk over the tops of the Beinn Fhada ridge, before a steep descent back to Coire Gabhail down scree, grass and icy rock from the col at 169548.