Enjoy a beautiful winter sunrise after wild camping on Beinn Alligin

With pretty much every step on the way up I question why on earth I would choose to do this. The burn of the climb. The weight of the pack. The gamble of there even being a view at the top with Scotland’s notoriously unpredictable weather. The thought of having to walk all of this way again when I go back down. At night, as the temperature drops well below zero, I convince myself that I’ll never do this again. Then my alarm sounds. I unzip the tent and poke my head out to check if it’s worth leaving the little warmth I’ve found in my sleeping bag. The hints of red already in the sky at 5am give me the answer.

I wander out into the icy morning and up to the ridge. The crunch of newly frozen snow below my feet is the only thing I hear. There’s a silence like no other up here. Not even a hint of wind. Total peace. I wait for about 15 minutes before the sun finally starts to approach the horizon and the sky explodes with colour. The new day starts to breathe life back into this frozen landscape and just like that I’ve totally forgotten all of the doubts from the day before. This is why I do it.

This is the only moment I’ll remember when I convince myself to head back out into the wild and do it all over again.