The weather was slightly crazy over New Year, with high winds and storms lashing the West Coast but as a friend had come up from London especially to go hill-walking, hill walking we went. Over 4 days we managed to get up munro's three days and crowned New Years Day by bagging Stob Coire Raineach in Glencoe. A fitting hill to do as we had been beaten back on the same hill several years earlier on New Years Day because of high winds, and a few days earlier had had to turn back on the approach because of bad high winds on the walk in up the Lairig Gartain. We worked out this was the lowest the wind had ever beaten us - a mere 400 metres above sea level.

I wonder if our determination made us a bit foolhardy - the pictures shows us at the summit. I am sitting down because it was just too windy to stand up! One of those situation where you are OK as long as nothing goes wrong but there wasn't much room for error with wind speeds up to 50 miles an hour. I was definately having trouble staying up right. Thankfully we had no need for the Glencoe Mountain Rescue team and got back down safely!

We checked out the weather in advance with the Mountain Weather Information Service so were prepared for wild weather - an essential thing to do when hill-walking in Scotland in winter.