After an apprenticeship of Munro bagging the guys decided upon a summer holiday - to climb Mont Blanc.

First up was an altitude training day, up the telepherique to Aiguilles du Midi, through the ice cave and on with our crampons, and axe in hand start the descent into the Valle Blanche. But why was everyone else roped up ? After the successful ascent of Mont Blanc du Tacul we decided to try the ascent of Mont Blanc itself, walking up from our campsite on the edge of Chamonix, to a planned camp near the Grand Mullet hut before completing the walk the following day - or so we planned. After a couple of hours of leaving Chamonix we found ourselves faced with a crevasse field on the glacier, but nothing daunted, on we pressed, jumping over crevaces where required until we reached our objective for the day and camped near the hut.

That evening we sat discussing our experience in the tent, and all decided that perhaps we were out of our depths; perhaps our scottish winter hillwalking did not equip us with the correct skills of dealing with crevasses.

The following morning we all came to the conclusion that we should retreat and get back to Chamonix and buy a rope and harnesses.

On our way out we were faced with the French army on a training exercise crossing the glacier, all roped up.

Upon getting home we decided that we did perhaps want to do a bit of climbing so the four of us went our separate ways with promises to buy some gear, read up some books and chat to some climbers we vaguely knew. Come the winter we all got together again in Glencoe, a wonderful crisp day with little wind and no rain, so off we trudged into Stob Coire Nan Lochan, me with my second hand 50m 11mm rope, straight shafted axes bought second hand from a guy working in Summits in Paisley, and wearing an assortment of clothes - placcie boots, gaiters, ron-hills, thermal top with a Wild Rover fleece with pertex outer.

After a quick look at the coire we decided that as we had been up gullies before whilst winter munro bashing then we should stick to this - so Forked Gully it was. My mate set off, "led" the first pitch (placing no gear) and thrust his axe shaft in the snow - this was his belay. Guess he should have read some more books. Up I came, all the time thinking that this climbing malarkey was straightforward and fun, but when I reached him the climb gave us two options, left or right- so undeterred (and utterly naïve) I set off up Forked Gully Right Hand, a nice grade II/III as my first lead.

I found out why it was slightly harder than the left option, found out how to place gear, found out how much I could trust my feet - and also how much I was crapping myself, and how much more reading, practice, and observing of others I still had to do.

Thirteen years later I still climb with pretty much the same team of guys, although all of us now have practiced more, read more, and observed (and learned) more from others.

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Write approximately 500 words about your first outdoor lead and supply an image of you climbing (not necessarily your first lead) and submit to: http://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/send.html

The competition will be judged by us here at DMM and the winner announced on Monday 24th December and will win a complete DMM rack worth £500.

But more than that, everyone who submits an essay will receive a spot prize.

More details HERE