Not only do the north western highlands have the advantage of sea scape but they are also sharper, more dramatic often with a little entertaining scrambling to boot. The new North Wales Climbs from Rockfax is an improvement on the previous edition, with extra routes, great topos, and inspiring action shots" says Tom Ripley. I naturally travelled up for a few days in Scotland, the culmination being a long day on the big hills of Affric.

The daunting prospect of what was still to come hit me and I was on the longest day of my Munro challenge. Given the archaic nature of bagging hills in feet, it's nice to give the pastime the weight of a bit of background history. Eventually we hit the road in good time for a World Cup game where Beckham scored his penalty to beat Argentina. I headed back to the Bothy but was gutted to find that I could not find my beer in the river – it is probably still there!over Ladhar Bheinn proved spectacular with top weather, a relatively straight forward ascent and then spectacular views over ridge and sea towards Skye all amounting to my most memorable (in terms of enjoyment) day on the hills. Myself and Barry opted for a genuine crossing from east at the Mullardoch damn (a fine spot) out along Glen Elchaig where we would be picked up by Reg and Archie. In previous editions you got just one walk to the top of each Munro, with limited if any reference to alternatives. We then circuited Coire Laggan along Collies Ledge , over Sgurr Mhic Connich towards Sgurr Alasdair. An Socach is the only Munro which is harder to get to but this was mainly because of the snow lying in the gully between it and the other three.

The interminable valley of Glen Meadail was finally abandoned in favour of a direct ascent through the cliffs. The satisfaction of completion is great but only really entices you into the next chapter, whatever that happens to be. Being slightly colour blind, my one gripe with the new maps is that I struggle to read the blue lettering used to name watercourses. In brief, it’s a larger and modern looking book with longer descriptions of the routes to and from the summit of the 282 Scottish mountains with a height of more than 3000ft/914m. Once you make a walking guidebook larger than pocket size, you might as well go the whole hog and embrace a format that does justice to the photography and allows the layout some space to breathe.She has enjoyed a long career, first in many of Scotland’s newspaper offices and then, for the last 17 years, as a freelancer. The wind has partially stripped the final section of summit ridge of snow to reveal lethal, verglassed, angular rocks on which he attempts to gain purchase.