This mountaineering challenge was first drawn to my attention by Iain Cameron’s Flickr post featuring the Scottish Mountaineering Club’s week long tour from Balmoral to Glen Nevis.

It’s a fascinating feat that was repeated in 2010 by father and son team, Roger and Finlay Wild. Alas, the weather has not allowed the achievement again, at least on skis.

I’d often wondered about what sort of snow you’d need to complete and recently discovered a feature on Ogimet that can scrape old weather data and place it into a table.

Just look at the snow depths below! As the SMC account says the participants would have been better undertaking the tour a week earlier, rather than starting four days into a thaw. The depths in earlier February, however, illustrate just how good the conditions would have been, compared with today!

A full account of the original tour can be found here.