The best of walking is ridge walking. Swoop downwards from the peak, level off along a rocky crest, then rise again to another summit; and then do the same thing again, four or five or even eight times over. Let the ridge sides drop steeply 900m to a green valley where a river gleams among the alder trees; and beyond the valley another steep ridge, and another, and the sea reaching silver-grey into the furthest west. For added interest let the ridge top be composed of three different sorts of stone. And you've started to understand why the area from Ben Nevis southwards to Glen Coe is some of the finest mountain walking there is in the UK.
       I put that 'some of' so as not to annoy the lovers of Snowdonia, or the English Lakes, or Skye, or Torridon. There's a lot more of Lochaber than there is of Snowdonia; it's one and a half times as large as Lakeland. It's a whole lot easier to get to than Skye. Still not convinced? In that case...

       Follow me first onto one of the less celebrated summits, Ben Starav at the bottom of Glen Etive. Its long ridge (Route 73) is stony with moss, and leads into an easy scramble over blobby boulders of grey granite. But now, drop into the green valley on the left and enjoy another aspect of it all. Steep grass and granite slabs shut out the sky. Below the path, a gloomy ravine, with the flash of a waterfall. And at the valley foot, under green birch and dark pine, the cuckoo calls, and white water slides over granite that mysteriously is now coloured pink.
       Next, let's visit Bidean nam Bian. The rocks now are volcanic, grey-blue andesite and pinky-grey rhyolite, all of it great to climb on if you're a rock climber. Enter Bidean up one of its three ravines, each with some of that great climbing rock hanging impressively overhead. It's steep, and it's gloomy, and it gets steeper, until all at once you emerge onto Bidean's ridge, with bright sky around you.
       Granite and volcanic: the third rock is called quartzite. It's flat but cracked, like a city pavement after earthquakes. Follow it along the Grey Corries, where its sharp edges will slash your boots, but its flat slabs give almost-easy walking above the precipices.
       By now you're getting tired. So take a break; and come back in February or March. The eroded path along the Mamores is gone, and instead a snow edge swoops like a breaking wave. Gawk but also walk: this snow is crisp and crunchy for your crampons. In the clear cold air of a classic winter day, views are southwards over half a dozen ranges to the dome of Ben Lomond.
       At the bottom of every steep-sided ridge there's a steep-walled valley. Some of those valleys contain the A82 (alas, how even-lovelier would be Glen Coe without its busy road). But the others offer long through routes, with rugged paths and smooth Landrover tracks. A comfortable track leads between the jaws of the Lairig Leacach, and down past small waterfalls while looking up at Ben Nevis and the Mamores. Then it's down a river whose alder-shaded bank has green levels for the tent. An even lonelier glen -- but still with a good footpath -- leads you to a lochan and bothy that are completely out of it. And however bleak the Blackwater, the last four miles, through a deep, steep glen of beautiful birchwoods, will leave you at Kinlochleven longing for the next really long walk with the big rucksack. Just as soon as your feet and shoulders have recovered from the first one.

Oh, Sir Hugh Munro
An oddity of hillwalking in Scotland is that it takes place almost entirely above the 900m contour line. Sir Hugh Munro in 1892 listed the hills above 3000ft (914.4m) -- after revisions there are currently 284 of them, of which 44 are in the area of this guidebook. Almost all hillwalkers are engaged in visiting these 284, and the 284 are indeed worthwhile hills to visit. But the consequence is that the well-trodden ways and rebuilt paths are on these, rather high, hills. The lesser heights, of 914.3m and below, are largely pathless, and their lesser altitude usually means denser and tougher vegetation for those paths to be absent from. Accordingly, the lower hills are interesting, and unfrequented; but they are not easy. The less difficult of them, and the most interesting, are included here.

       The 'standard routes' up the Munros are detailed in several existing guidebooks including Steve Kew's Walking the Munros Volume 1 published by Cicerone. So, while I have described them here briefly, I have also sought out the more interesting ways around the back, the unfrequented corries, the more demanding rugged ridgelines from the less convenient car parks.
       But on the finest of them all I've left the choice to you. Bidean is a hill to visit many times by many different routes; and so, in the south, is Ben Cruachan. The Mamores is one great ridge of many mountains: where you go up and where you come down depends on how much of it you want to do today. The Blackmount's great complex sprawl also deserves to be explored in detail.