What makes climbers risk their lives in Arctic temperatures and treacherous terrain?
We examine the deadly allure of Scotlands mountains WHEN the lights go out in a room, you can usually trust blind instinct to navigate your way to the switch or the door, even if you stumble a little on the way. If a raging snowstorm turns off the sun on an Arctic mountain plateau, you are in much more trouble. You are in a white-out. It has been described as akin to trying to keep your footing while inside a washing machine, but being caught out in a snowstorm is worse than that. The wind drives snow into your eyes with such ferocity that keeping them closed seems to be the only way to preserve the prospect of ever seeing again. Even behind ski goggles or a balaclava mask, holding your head upright is almost impossible. Breathing, slogging against the snow and wind, repressing that drowning, suffocating panic, gets hard. A glimpse beyond a soaking hood, the only patch of colour in your closed-down world, shows just a grey-white canvas. There is no horizon, no mountain silhouette, no s
