Over the course of last winter, I worked on a project in collaboration with GORE-TEX, Jamie Skelton, Ella Wright and Tim Miller, putting a range of GORE-TEX Pro kit through its paces over the course of a Scottish winter season. When it comes to testing kit, I don’t think you get a much higher bar than Scotland in winter. Going out in all sorts of wild weather, grovelling up thrutchy mixed chimneys, and sweaty walk-ins carrying heavy packs full of climbing gear. The clothing you wear needs to keep you dry to give you every chance of succeeding in this tough environment. Jamie Skelton on the wi ..read more

2018 felt a bit mad. Good mad, but mad all the same. It’s been the first year where I’ve started to realise that this slightly crazy, speculative career gamble might actually fly in the long run. More importantly however, it’s been a year of amazing trips with even more amazing people. As such I wanted to put together an end of year review piece, partly to share an insight into what goes on behind the scenes in my work, partly to share some photos I haven’t previously published, but also partly for my own benefit to have a record of what’s been a really fun year. My work tends to operate on a ..read more

It was a midweek afternoon in early April and I was at a loose end in Fort William. Awaiting me back in Glasgow was a sizeable pile of pretty tedious admin work. In the back of my head I knew that I should get myself home and start making some headway through it all, but the weather was also sunny out, and I was right by the mountains, and I just so happened to have my skis with me. Quite a conundrum… Within about 10 minutes I’d made an incredibly difficult decision and cemented plans to head up Stob Coire nam Beith that evening with Rob Kingsland (a skiing buddy who’s recently relocated ..read more

Scottish backcountry skiing is all about ‘the game’. Every winter, those that choose to play it will spend time almost every day poring over weather charts and trying to build a picture of where the best conditions might be. This picture is complicated by highly localised weather systems and ferocious winds which commonly strip the mountains of any new snow which has fallen. The line between finding a gully either full to the brim with powder, or choked with sheet ice is often a thin one. With so many variables at play, even veterans of ‘the game’ regularly head into the mountains only 50% con ..read more

At the end of the first full year in which I’ve really begun taking my photography seriously, I wanted to do some sort of review of the year including a selection of some of my highlight images from 2016. I also thought it would be a worthwhile exercise to reflect back on what has in many respects been a fairly mad year, with some notable big changes in my life. I hope this exercise of looking back and reviewing will help me prepare in some way for the big challenges I’m expecting 2017 to throw at me - so here we go! After a slow start to the Scottish ski season before the New Year, the first ..read more

Just over two weeks ago, almost exactly one year after swearing I’d never run one of these races again, I once again found myself in the start area of the Salomon Glen Coe Skyline. The previous years race over the 50km mountainous course (including 4500m of ascent and an equivalent amount of leg punishing descent) had wrecked my knees, leaving me unable to run at all for a full month after the race. An international field of runners gather in the start area ©iancorless.com For those that don’t know, Skyrunning is pitched as ‘a fusion between alpinism and mountain running’. It’s basically fell ..read more

The question had been burning in the back of my mind for some time now. When was I going to get the opportunity to go for a combined skiing/biking/hiking trip in the morning before work, in the middle of July... Fortunately enough, yesterday morning I was finally able to put this question to bed. With some reliable info that the snow in Great Gully, a deep cleft on the western headwall of Garbh Choire Mór on Braeriach, was still intact, Blair Aitken and I set off from Coylumbridge at 12am to cycle the six miles to Loch Einich. It took less than a hundred yards for me to realise that heading o ..read more

It’s deep-winter and I’m standing on a tiny ledge, half-way up an ice-choked gully on the north face of Ben Nevis, a vertical abyss falling away below. There’s a biting wind swirling around and spindrift pouring down from above, I’m stomping up and down, attempting to get some warmth flowing back into my body. In the meantime my climbing partner, is making slow but steady progress up the gully above me. I’m using my left hand to belay him whilst my right is clutching my camera trying to focus and get a decent shot. It’s hardly the ideal conditions for getting technically brilliant photos, and ..read more