We run all of our Scottish Winter courses on the West Coast of Scotland as it’s a great playground in the winter time. We used to base ourselves on the East Coast around the Cairngorms National Park but we’ve since seen the light: West is best! We’ve found that there’s far more options on the West Coast to cope with extreme weather and dangerous avalanche conditions, along with a greater variety and quality of mountaineering and climbing.

We base ourselves in Fort William as there’s a good selection of accommodation options locally. It’s useful to have a short commute to Ben Nevis, given the scale of many of the routes; Glen Coe is a short drive away as are the Grey Corries providing alternative venues. At Aonach Mor and Creise there are uplifts which are a great option (wind permitting) to save tired legs and spend more time up high in the snow focusing on the skills. Furthermore there’s some great training facilities such as the Ice Factor available as a mid week recovery or to hide out the truly apocalyptic weather days.

Fort William and the surrounding area has a wealth of accommodation options This page is currently a work in progress but if you have any favorite places to stay we’d love to develop this page as a resource so let us know and share your tips.

Having somewhere warm to return to at the end of the day, and crucially to dry your kit, means we don’t recommend camping in winter.

Calluna Bunkhouse