Getting out of bed into the darkness and cold of the morning took a bit of will power. The Cuillin were grey touched with fire as we climbed. As yet, the Outer Isles were dark in a dull sea but clear cut and sharp. Below us, every wrinkle in the moor was picked out, with shadows making folds of the deep snow. Arthur's game leg, the result of an air crash, was giving him trouble, so at a thousand feet when the tops were floodlit yellow in a deep blue sky, he had to give up.

I went on and clambered up Sgùrr Dearg. It was hard going, for the choice was between sinking into deep snow or taking to ice-covered rocks. Higher up, there was no choice and it was great fun tackling an infinite variety of forms; verglas; sheet ice; ice crystals; and even pure névé. Not a scrap of the original rock was showing on Dearg except for the south face of the Inaccessible Pinnacle. But, as ice crowned the exits of the possible routes on that face, I think the pinnacle was really inaccessible. From every other standpoint it was just a glistening finger of ice.

Views from the summit were impressive. Sròn na Cìche, banded with ice, looked absolutely, impregnable; and the great faces of Alasdair, Theàrlaich, and Mhic Coinnich the last word in inaccessibility. Blaven and Clach Glas bristled with hanging snow and ice, but it was my immediate peaks that attracted most since I was going to try my hand on them.

It was interesting work. The ordinary scree slopes on top were converted into sheets of steep ice-crystals consolidated like névé, which meant that at any angle at all, steps had to be cut. All the rocks had a moss of ice-flowers, very easily cleared, but sometimes it was underlaid with glazed stuff. Snow texture was varied too and took a little practice before the eye could assess its behaviour. Progress was reasonably fast, however, and after Banachdaich I felt I had its measure and technique. Thormaid was difficult, and I nearly gave up on Ghreadaidh but fortunately a justifiable route presented itself and I was able to get across to Mhadaidh. That windless frosty day of sunshine was the finest, I think, I have ever spent.

Views were marvellous from here. Loch Coruisk, deep down in shadow, held the amethyst of the sunclouds. From it rose the ice-girders that supported the fluted tops. The silence was deathly. Frost gripped the water-chains that make a soundbox of Coire an Uaigneis, a soundbox of roaring water, water that slides two thousand feet from the Cuillin's heights to cascade into Loch Coruisk. There was a new atmosphere in the Cuillin which at first was beyond me to define.