Jim Perrin raises our anticipation for the coming season, recalling the gleaming, glittering challenges of winter climbing in the Cairngorms

■ Distance: 6 miles/9.7km ■ Time: 2½-3hours ■ Grade: Easy

You don’t need all day to have a big adventure, as this Holy Mountain proves.

Twenty-five years ago, large chunks of Eryri’s Aran range were out of bounds. That all changed in 2000. To celebrate a quarter-century of the legislation that changed the game, Trail set out to walk the entire ridge… unobstructed.

Norman Hadley shares a tale of youthful misadventure, when a navigational mistake on the Cairngorm plateau seemed to defy all constraints of space and time

Stefan Durkacz traces an old rail route on a superb full-day walk