While few of us can aspire to climb the hardest routes, we all may open the SMC Journal and experience the excitement of exploratory climbing or the tense uncertainty of a first ascent. In this issue Helen Rennard recounts her ground-breaking winter climbs with Dave McLeod, Iain Small and Dave Almond, while Almond himself leads us up the fearsome Mistral route on Beinn Eighe.

No point of the compass is neglected. In 'Winter Out West' Neil Adams describes pioneering routes in Ardgour. Iain Young goes 'Mountaineering in Hyperborea' on winter visits to the far north, while Bob Duncan soloes the Old Man of Hoy. Finlay Wild finds 'Eastern Promise' in his gruelling Cairngorm ski-tours. And further south, Mike Jacob recalls the rock-climbing exploits of 'Harold Raeburn in Lakeland'.

We can recover our breath with some gentler pieces. In 'Night' Ian Crofton reflects on nocturnal phenomena in the mountains, while Donald Orr appraises D.Y.Cameron's mountain drawings. Gavin Anderson asks which heroes deserve 'A Stance on Parnassus', Dave Broadhead gets on his bike, Iain Cameron visits long-lying snowfields, and Robin Campbell guides us round the Scottish mountaineering archives.

Humour can be found in the writings of Tim Pettifer and Phil Gribbon, dark fiction in a short story by Mike Dixon, and bone-shattering reality in Brian Shackleton's account of his serious accident. Ever-popular features include New Routes (some 660 of them), Munro Matters, and 21 expert reviews of recent books.