The editor has requested a list of my 10 most memorable climbs that I would like to find if marooned on a desert island. He must be desperate for copy, but at the risk of boring the sports climbers among you here goes:-

Remembrance (HVS, 4b, 5a, 4b), Gimmer Crag, Langdale

No excuse for including my own routes in this list, - they usually get me more excited than other people's though it is highly doubtful that they do the same for anyone else. I climb this one every spring without fail and hope to carry on doing so until I am too decrepit to walk up the mountain (not that far off!). In this case familiarity has bred fondness and if anyone would like to do it with me next year please get in touch.

Bonatti Pillar (TD+), Petit Dru, Chamonix

One of my first alpine routes, complete with miniscule bivi-sites, rain, hail, snow, lightning-strike and severe hallucinations brought on by tiredness and dodgy camembert. A true baptism by fire.

Campanile Basso, the Ordinary Route (IV)

My last alpine route, climbed only a few months ago in the centenary year of its first ascent. Also climbed by my father in 1946 and would undoubtedly have formed one of his desert island climbs. Not the hardest route up the tower but surely one of the most spectacular with the incredible Stradone Provinciale, a narrow footpath the crosses three faces of the tower two-thirds of the way up, and along which the route traverses.

King Rat (E1 4b, 5c, 4b, 4b, 4c, -, -), Creag an Dubh Loch

A good but not a brilliant route this. It is very long and all the interesting climbing is in the first few pitches, but its significance to me is that it was the last of the "Hard Rock" routes I had left to do and when I climbed it in 1988 a ten year quest was finally over.

Ticking Hard Rock took me to some amazing parts of the country and up some incredible climbs, ranging from Bow Wall (E2) in Cornwall to the Old Man of Hoy (HVS) in the Orkneys. Not forgetting of course the trouser filling Scoop (A3) on Sron Ulladale in the Outer Hebrides.

North-West Ridge (TD+), Dansketinde

We climbed this massive, virgin ridge on the highest peak in the Staunings Alps in Greenland in one 24-hour push taking full advantage of the continuous daylight the Arctic Circle enjoys in the summer. It took 28 hours and involved climbing a 500m gully with a cornice the size of Kilnsey Main Overhang simply to reach the start, and then led us by circuitous ways through, round and over the most incredible series of vast gendarmes that you can imagine, before easier mixed ground led to the summit which was reached in a true Caingorm-style blizzard at 1am in the morning. Getting down safely in a total whiteout was another matter all together!

Orion Face Direct (V, 5), Ben Nevis

This was the final route of a short period of ice-climbing I have had or am ever likely to have on The Ben. Having soloed Zero Gully (V) and The Curtain (IV), I then teamed up with a friend to climb Point Five (V), Hadrians Wall (V), North-East Buttress (IV), route Major (IV) and Smith's Route (V), as well as assisting in the rescue of a climber who had unfortunately managed to stab himself with his ice-axe whilst glisssading, before starting Orion Direct at the traditional Scottish start time of noon. Needless to say it was midnight by the time we arrived on the summit having climbed the upper half of the route with one head torch between two. All in five days!

Morrel's Wall (6a - English or course!), Almscliff

Almscliff was where I started climbing and to me it is still "t'best crag in t'world". I could have picked any of its routes for they are all superb, but this tiny boulder problem on almost the first boulder one sees on approaching the crag is one I repeat on every visit, just to make sure I can still do it, and has come to mean something special as a result. But perhaps if you are felling generous you might allow the whole crag!

Cuillin Ridge (VDiff!!! in summer, IV in winter), Skye

Summer (solo from the south) and winter in two days via Pinnacle Ridge from the north with all difficulties taken direct - naturally!

Without doubt the finest mountaineering excursion in the British isles bar none and certainly two of my most memorable climbing trips ever.

Heir Apparent Direct (E2/3 5a, 5a, 5b/c), Dungeon of Buchan, Galloway 

Another one of my own I'm afraid but still no excuses. The summer when Joe Grinbergs and I developed this fantastic crag was one of my best cliimbing years. And the final pitch up the Cooran headwall with its elegant curving granite flake starting and finishing in the middle of nowhere was probably the best pitch we did.

North Face of the Droites in winter (ED1), Chamonix

This is the only one I haven't done, though I did once get two-thirds of the way up it before my climbing partner succumbed to altitude sickness after a miserable sitting bivouac (in February) and we had to pack it in and make about 20 abseils down the Couzy Spur. It's the best looking north face in the alps without a doubt and I'd love another crack at it (any volunteers?!)

As for a climbing book, it would have to be Tom Patey's "One Man's Mountains" which still has me in hoots every time I open it.

My first choice of a luxury, a stunning belay bunny eager and able to anticipate my every desire (just lead that 6a pitch will you), will probably be disallowed by the BMC Moral Outrage, Re-Education, Political Correctness and Sexual Equality on eXpeditions Committee (MORE-PC-SEX for short) so I'll settle for sufficient chalk powder, choklitt ^{(c) Tammi Knight}, 12 year old malt whisky and Avalanche Poodle^{(c) Tammi Knight} to enable me to erase all thoughts (almost) of belay bunnies from my mind. Oh and a fridge to keep my ice climbs cool!

Stephen Reid