After about ten days of snow fall and strong winds transporting it into gullies, hollows and sheltered slopes, it is quite hard walking around at the moment! Donald, Louisa and I took our group from Welbeck College to Beinn a'Chaorrain for the first of four days of mountaineering. Some of the guys had not walked in snow before but they certainly have now!

We found some great wind lips and small cornices to play on in safe locations which were ideal for showing the texture of windslab, layers in the snow pack and what trigger is nedded to cause a slab release. With the strong winds some areas have been scoured clean of soft snow and we found some little bits of ice at 600m to try out the crampons on. Tomorrow looks a little warmer and wet but then it's back to cold on Monday.

At long last it looks like the snow has started to arrive for the winter. It has kept us waiting quite late this autumn, we just had a brief flurry a few weeks ago but even that was enough for a few routes and a new route to be climbed. We now have a big high pressure system sat in the Atlantic which is keeping low pressure systems further north. As these track over the North of Scotland they bring a fairly continuous stream of polar maritime air to the west coast of Scotland. In other words, we'll have cold and wet weather for a week or so with snow on the hills. This graphic from WetterZentrale.de shows what's happening quite well.

In fact the rest of December and into early January look much the same ( http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/forecast ). We're likely to have the usual mix of stormy weather and snow on the hills with occasional thaws and frosts on clear nights.  So the message is, get your ice axes and crampons out, dust them off and get ready to battle those mountain giants!

We go on at length about how good mountain biking is in Scotland. Here in the Outdoor Capital of the UK it is at its best when you think of the variety as well as the quality of what is on offer. The trail centres are excellent and the enduro riding is second to none in Kinlochleven, but for me it's the adventure riding which makes the biking here stand out.

At the end of last week I rode a three day tour of Ben Nevis with students on the Advanced Certificate in Outdoor Leadership Course at West Highland College. The first day was along the West Highland Way to Kinlochleven, a fabulous, technical ride with one of the best descent in the country, down to the shore of Loch Leven. We had brilliant weather for the second day which went up to Blackwater Dam first. The section from there past Chiarain Bothy to Loch Treig is outstanding and one of my favourite bits of trail anywhere. You then get a fast, mostly downhill section of double track in the back of beyond before emerging to stay at Tulloch. The Puggy Line then made a brilliant return to Fort William. World class mountain biking as part of a college course for these students. We were all very lucky!

As a counterpoint to the expedition we went to Laggan Wolftracks on Monday. The technical trails and fast flowing berms and bumps felt so much easier and more fun than the expedition trails but lacked the big wilderness feel. It's a great venue for coaching though and the students were doing some video analysis. See if you can pick up the learning points from these video clips.