In the recent spell of awesome weather Alastair Begley headed north for a long-anticipated date with Liathach, one of Scotland's greatest winter ridge traverses. He could not have picked a better window. Jealous? Us? Not half.

This is an abridged version of an account that originally featured in Alastair's blog Masterplan Mountaineering

Over the past few years I have completed three out of the four classic mountaineering ridges in Scotland in winter- An Teallach, Aonach Eagach and the Cuillin Ridge. This just left Liathach. Unfortunately for the past two years the weather and conditions didn't align while I was in the area. Thankfully this year it was very different as we were blessed with a stunning weather forecast during the time we had planned on being in Torridon.

Our walk up from the Beinn Eighe car park was wonderful, the rising sun plastering the mountains in an orange glow. The ascent up to the start of the ridge was pretty hard work and we took a very long time. Thankfully someone else had broken trail which made the approach somewhat easier. When we got up to to the first top we were greeted by a spectacular panorama of the Torridon hills, which instantly made all the hard work worthwhile.

On the ridge there was a decent track and less snow, enabling us to make much better progress. This initial section is fantastic ridge walking with stunning views and great positions. Thankfully we met another team on this part of the ridge who had remember one of the less-often required items for scottish winter, suncream!

Thanks to this improved progress we made it to the first Munro just before my cut-off time to continue. It would have been a shame to turn back on such a perfect day. Unfortunately, this was one of the short periods of the day where there was some hill fog so we didn't actually get a view from the summit. The descent down to the pinnacles of Am Fasarinen was covered in wonderful soft snow which made it quick and easy and we were soon gearing up for the technical section of the ridge.

The difficulties around the pinnacles were always short lived and never very hard, but there were a few airy sections with some fantastic exposure. We made good time across the technical ground and were soon at the other side getting ready for the ascent up to the final Munro. As we were climbing the views just kept getting better and better, and at the top we were greeted to a stunning 360-degree panorama of Scottish mountains basking in sunshine.

Due to the extensive soft snow cover the descent was painless, and we were back at the road in no time. Thankfully I avoided having to make the three mile walk back up the road to the car thanks to a very friendly guide from North Wales and his wife who gave me a lift.

It was a brilliant mountaineering day out, with 4km of outstanding ridge walking and scrambling. Worth waiting for the conditions too, thanks to the excellent scenery which Torridon has to offer.