Action Man: Duncan McCallum takes on Ben Nevis

To say I was scared would be over-stating it, but I was nervous. After all, this was my first winter climbing experience, and it was on the "big bad Ben".

My climbing partner, Ian Dally, was 18 years older then me; a mighty veteran of expeditions to the Alps and the Arctic peaks off Canada's Baffin Island, so I was in good hands. Why he thought that climbing with a gangly schoolboy in a pair of cut-off jumbo-cord breeches on one of the biggest walls in the country was a good idea, I will never know, but we set off up the track together, with the morning frost crunching under our feet.

Every breath and footstep took us closer to the biggest ice-festooned cliffs I had ever seen. Icicles and gullies drop from the summit observatory, plunging towards the famous climbers' hut that lies under the north face of the Ben. The names of these climbs – Point Five, Mega Route X, Gully, Echo Wall – are legendary, mapping out a history of generations of climbers who, for over 100 years, have dared to test themselves in this magnificent arena.

As we walked under the dark rock and ice walls, I could feel their weight bearing down on my shoulders, but any thoughts of actually climbing on these walls were soon lost in the processes; simply putting one foot in front of the other. We stopped at the hut and were handed a cup of hot tea from one of Ian's friends, who was lucky enough to have secured a bunk here for the weekend.

I stepped into the hut, its dark smoky walls echoed with the spirits of Tom Patey and Dougal Haston, dead legends whose deeds and words filled my young head. To the mountaineer, especially the ice climber, Ben Nevis is truly a giant, which to this day still offers unclimbed challenges to set the mind wondering and the palms sweating.

We headed out from the hut. Like a puppy, I tried to stay as close as I could to Ian's heels, stepping in his prints, matching his slow, steady and relentless pace. It took at least another hour to reach our objective – Bob Run, a Grade II-III ice climb, one of the shortest routes on the mountain but with the longest approach on the hill.

Ian dug a ledge into the snow and we put on our crampons. He then cut a T-slot, into which my brand-new ice axe was battered, and tied it off with a sling. Looking back, this would never have held a leader fall – it was more about making me feel comfortable and to stop me tripping over my crampons and pulling him off the route. I flicked the rope over my back and proceeded to feed it out to Ian as he tip-toed up the ice above me.

That first ice climb was 'make or break' for me. It was long, hard, and I had no clue what I was doing. But at the end of that day, sitting in the West End Hotel in Fort William with a pint in my underage hand, I was hooked. I cannot thank Ian enough for having had the patience to guide me into a life in the mountains. That day I learnt to step-cut in ice, abseil from a snow-bollard, to walk at 'guides' pace and so much more. Climbing and travelling in the Scottish mountains has been one of the greatest gifts of my life.

Find out more about Duncan's adventures at www.duncanmccallumadventure.blogspot.com and www.sourcealps.com

This Article was first published in Scotland on Sunday, March 28, 2010