Coaching weekend at Plas y Brenin

This weekend Snowdonia will be the place to be! Plas y Brenin will be hosting a coaching seminar with guest appearances from some highly respected key speakers plus myself! Meanwhile over in Llanberis the annual mountain film festival, Llamff, will be in full swing. The weekend is so full that you will need to programme your timetable quite carefully to get the best out of the events - that is if you've already booked a place on the coaching seminar - standing room only!

Rock climbing season approaches

Andy Boorman leading Plumbine (E3 5c)

Although winter has returned to the summits, along the coast road spring is definitely in the air. On Sunday 13th a keen group of "golden oldies" met up at Pen Trwyn for some climbing while the sun was on the crag. We arrived well-wrapped but soon had to strip of some layers - away from the breeze it was surprisingly warm. We led a few classic "trad" lines like Plumbline and Klondyke and top-roped a few harder lines while we were at it. MLTW Board member Andy Boorman was on good form and also led the recently reinstated classic Quicksilver (7a).  Chris Parkin brought along a bucketful of metalware to dish out to various volunteers from the North Wales bolt fund team. Once the crag lost the sun it was a different story as the rock chilled instantly
Arriving home, I found that the clothes on the washing line had dried as well. Some days you can just pick and choose your season; this was one of them.

Chris Parkin leading Klondyke (E3 6a)

MIC Moderation visit at Glenmore Lodge

Following the MLT Board meeting at Glenmore Lodge it was a great opportunity to stay on for a Quality Assurance inspection of an Mountaineering Instructor Certificate course - we call these moderation visits. This involved a full day on the hill with the group as well as various briefing sessions as well as anb evening session about the role of the MIC and an introductory avalanche lecture delivered to residents and guests - an audience of about 70 people in all.

We had perfect conditions for the first day, an easy walk in to hard snowpack: ideal for looking at the finer coaching points of snow craft: kicking and cutting steps, self-belay, fall arrest and snow anchors.

Words of wisdom from George Mac

Sean Roberts gives a great demonstration of ice axe braking

Lovely day for a walk

John Cousins (MLT Executive Officer) and myself had a day off while in Scotland so we went for a walk over to the Shelter Stone. We took a small rack and rope in case conditions the temperature dropped, but it was clear that the snow wasn't frozen as we strolled over the Cairngorm plateau, although crampons were desirable in places on the approach.

We soloed the first couple of pitches of Route Major up the snowy ramp, but at the step rightward onto a steeper ramp we found bare rock and grass. It was clearly climbable in these conditions and not very difficult but we decided that we would cause too much damage to the turf and therefore climbed carefully back down the ramp. So we continued up the gully, enjoying the rock architecture and then made good use of the good visibility to enjoy the walk back over the plateau, passing the usual cluster of snow holes in Coire Domhain.

John Cousins apporaching the summit of the Shelterstone crag

Interesting points about the bowline for knot geeks

The bowline is used quite extensively in climbing, so I thought the following snippet might be of use to others.

Bowline (left) and "Dutch" bowline (right): note tail end on outsid of knot (from wikipedia)

Following a dispute with a colleague in the UIAA I have done a little digging on the subject, although to be fair I should say Dan Middleton, the BMC technical officer has dug for me!

The discussion was about the merits or otherwise of a bowline tied with the tail end on the outside. This configuration is called a “dutch” or “cowboy” bowline, and the  research paper here suggests that it works just as well as the ordinary bowline which confirms my feeling that it is not an important distinction, though best teaching practise should demonstrate the classic bowline.

The wikipedia (here) suggests that this version knot is actually superior when the loop is subjected to loading that pulls it apart.

MIA registration fees: what you get for your £70

When Oxford University announced the decision to charge £9000 per year for students, it led me to the following reflections:

MLT is self-funding. This means that all of our day-to-day work has to be funded from the income from registrations and publication sales. The £70.00 that each MIA registrant pays contributes to the following (not a definitive) list:

·         Possible correspondence (sometimes lengthy) over missing pre-requisites from application, along with (normally) a 6 month “grace period” if necessary

·         Support to candidates while passing through schemes including free access to a complaints investigation panel over (rare) complaints about assessment course

·         Support for life with the following services:

o   Access during office hours to information and administration service

o   Development and maintenance of syllabus, handbook, website

o   Liaison with dozens of employment and education bodies to ensure continued recognition of our qualifications

o   Liaison with professional associations (AMI, BMG, BAIML) + voluntary association (MLTA) of award holders

o   Expenses for quarterly meetings of conscripted volunteers who constitute the development board

o   Pro-active work to protect our vocational mountaineering qualifications as the “industry standard”

o   Development and publication of the online “National Guidelines” document.

o   Representation of the UK qualifications at the Union of International Alpine Association’s (UIAA) international Training Standards, resulting in increasing international recognition

o   Parallel support and development of the MIC to complement and extend the scope of MIA

o   Quality Assurance system requiring regular inspection visits to National Centre courses in Snowdonia, Scotland and Ireland (summer + winter)

o   Marketing of the awards

o   On-going development of the MLT publications “Hillwalking”, “Rockclimbing” and “winter skills”

o   On-going development of ML, SPA CWA etc. which feed into the MIA scheme.

o   Production and postage of logbook

o   Maintenance and security of a UK-wide database of mountain leaders and instructors

o   Support for AMI, the association for MIA and MIC holders. (MLT receives no income from AMI apart from an administration service contract)

o   Regular news updates on the MLT website, blog, Twitter etc.

o   Potential access to work on SPA, ML, CWA, CWL, WGL courses

Graduates at Oxford who complete their degree will have parted with £27,000 in tuition fees plus accommodation and food costs for 3 years. Most degrees do not directly qualify them to get a job without further vocational experience and/or qualifications.

By comparison, an MIA graduate will have spent £70 registration and £1500 on tuition fees, including travel costs, and this is all tax-deductible. Apart from annual insurance costs for working there are no on-going costs for MIA holders (though of course many choose to join AMI and MLTA). Many AMI holders start earning a reasonable living immediately on completion of the qualification and continue to earn a good living for the rest of their working lives. Others work in a voluntary capacity, but either way the workplace is the Great Outdoors!

I can’t think of any other industry that gives so much in return for so little outlay.

Guidebook work is never finished

The Tremadog guidebook was a succesful project but it was impossible to personally check every route, and indeed I feel that the strength of a club production is in developing means to involve the membership, who collectively are likely to have climbed far more of the routes than I can ever hope to. However, that's no reason not to continue researching for myself, or perhaps I should rephrase that - I love climbing at Tremadog!

Sunday 29th January was blessed mainly with clear skies, and although the frosts still lingered it was reasonably warm in the afternoon, so I dragged out my long-suffering son for some exploration of the isolated buttresses to the west of Craig y Castell. We found that thanks to discreet but convenient abseil anchors we were able to complete several climbs in quick succession and check their neighbours. We climbed Gestiana  (E1, slighly over-rated at 2 stars), followed by Pryderi (E1) and Pert (E2) both well worth 2 stars if you ignore the muddy and brambly link between the approach pitch (with its perplexing crux) and the upper buttress.