If there was ever a route for which the magazine title Like the Wind seems less apt, I can’t think of one. It seems an age ago that I completed the Ring of Inverpolly, and the article I wrote subsequently was first published by The Fell Runner. But the memory of slow, rough heather and tussock bashing remains sharp. Perhaps it was simply the contrast with what might arguably be described as more mainstream running, but the story seemed to appeal to the editorial team at Like the Wind too, and has now been published in issue #50.

Without a doubt, the best day on the hill I’ve had I’ve had in a long time.

Photo courtesy of my new mate, the Flying Frenchie as I nicknamed him. I watched as he ran up towards the summit of Fontanabran, thinking: ‘he’s absolutely flying’… and so he was. Though he wasn’t entirely sure where he was headed, having decided to complete the traverse on spec’, basically following the route I was taking in reverse. I said ‘Bonjour’, as you do. And remarkably, for once, it was warranted….

Probably the shortest, least demanding of the lakeland ridges that warrant a scrambling grade, Sharp Edge is nonetheless an impressive feature which might otherwise only be deemed lacking owing to its failure to arrive at the summit of Blencathra. In the half light of dawn on a winter’s day with fresh snow on the ridge, it is positively alpine in appearance, and on any quiet day, it remains the best approach by far.

I have always been drawn to the vastness of Sutherland and Caithness, the wild coastline and rough hills rising as monoliths from the Flow Country that reaches towards the Pentland Firth and the Orkney Islands beyond. It is a landscape quite unlike any other in Scotland though it shares the same troubled stories…

Despite the 6,000ft ascent made directly from Argentiere, I was keen to revisit the remarkable ridge which leads to the Bec Rouge Supérieur, overshadowed by the Aiguille du Chardonnet.

Joining Bel Oiseau and Fontanabran is a ridge that reminded me of the Aonach Eagach, its narrow crest twisting in switchback back turns high above the Émosson Dam.

Despite taking both stages of the lift from Le Tour, taking in Les Grandes Otanes and Pointe des Berons gave well over 3,000ft of ascent, the ridge itself runnable in places but exposed and awkward in others with the odd gendarme to pass - probably no more than Grade 3 scrambling but thought provoking, nonetheless.

A long climb, mercifully on mostly wooded slopes to the western end of the ridge beneath Pointe de la Chalette, and then on passing numerous summits, to Le Brevént, and a direct descent from there to Chamonix. Hard going in 33°C.

After numerous trips to the Alps which included an equally numerous number of failed attempts to climb one route or another, as well as few more succesful ascents, there followed a gap of almost two decades before I returned to Argentiére. The first trip back was a fleeting affair, sufficient time to reacqauint myself with the valley and a couple of minor summits as well as Mont Buet’s north ridge which proved to be an excellent run. With more time available on my second trip back, there was greater opportunity to reflect on the changes that were now starkly obvious all around.

As many others have said of the southern end of the Cuillin Ridge, were it to be found anywhere else, it would be among the most sought after traverses in Scotland. Its fate is to be almost entirely overshadowed by what lies beyond. But for those willing to seek out the lines less travelled, there is no shortage of those quintessential qualities for which the main ridge is famed, and it remains one of the great mountain days to be had anywhere, in Scotland or beyond.

With the Cuillin Ridge clagged in and between increasingly heavy downpours, the traverse of Macleod’s Tables proved a fitting alternative, despite a false start or three.

If the traverse of Clach Glas and Blà Bheinn is one of the best mountaineering days to be had in Scotland, the traverse of Blà Bheinn alone is not without merit, especially for the runner happy to complete the remaining miles to Elgol on the coastal path.

In February ‘25, following the launch of Northern Horizons at the Fort William Mountain Festival, Kim and I had set out for Sgurr Nan Coireachan intent on completing the classic horseshoe including Sgurr Thuilm. In the event, rapidly deteriorating weather and a painful back spasm resulted in an early retreat from the first Munro. I’d run over both summits previously but having yet to join the two, I was keen to complete the round.

The most southerly Munro and a more popular hill than those I would typically choose to run, but it suited our purpose on this day, and with the corries full of snow, it seemed a good day on which to do it.

A minor classic, the round of Lochnagar and the White Mounth, more often referred to simply as ‘The Circuit’, offers the runner that peculiar combination of high summits and remarkably easy ground so characteristic of the Cairngorms. Which is not to say that more difficult, technical running does not exist, nor that a few boulder fields will not have to be crossed. But in general, the going is good, and fast — unless attempted on day when a rapid thaw is in progress and the hard névé of weeks gone by is consigned to memory.

A sublime morning - though the clag met us in cold embrace at the top of the crag - testing a new lens on the perfect rock of Wistow Crags, a grade 2 /3 scramble on the southern flank of Pillar above Mosedale.

My last trip north didn't go well. It didn't go at all actually. The apparently annual back spasm while loading the car left me watching in dismay as one of the best winter weather windows in years slipped away. Nearly two months later and I'm just getting back to it...so despite its brevity, there was no way I was missing this one.

The publication of Northern Horizons was in many ways, the realisation of a lifetime’s ambition. And if being shortlisted for an award at Banff seemed surreal, taking the guidebook category win was simply beyond anything I’d imagined at any point in the years of graft that went into its production.

There is a long list of people who deserve my thanks, not only for their help and guidance during those years, but for contributing to what culminated in an incredible week in Banff and the chance to meet some of those who have inspired me since childhood.