After a climbing or walking award, but getting bogged down in the acronyms? Jon Garside, BMC / MLTE Training Officer is here to help you out.

So, you want to get a climbing or walking qualification? Perhaps you’re thinking of a career in the outdoors, want to progress your voluntary work, or for some masochistic reason, you’d just like to test your personal skills? Welcome to the weird and often wet world of UK mountain training.

But if you don’t yet know your SPA from your WGL, then it’s easy to get a bit confused, as there are currently eight established awards in the UK for leaders, instructors and guides. Some interlink, others are standalone, but they are all used by a diverse range of professional and voluntary organisations, and universally recognised by the three Mountaineering Councils (i.e. the BMC, MCofS, MCI), the Health and Safety Executive and Governmental organisations. Two of these awards have a specific international remit as well. But just what do they all represent, and what’s the ethos behind them?

Are you experienced?
Well, primarily, they all demonstrate that the holder has been deemed competent to lead or instruct others in a certain situation. And whether someone is a gymnastics coach, a swimming instructor, or a mountain leader, competence is the key. According to the Health and Safety Executive there are four ways to test competence in a leader. Either you hold the relevant qualification, hold an equivalent qualification, have received appropriate in-house training, or are competent through experience.

Unlike some other countries, there are no laws in the UK requiring leaders to hold qualifications. However with our well-established national framework of awards, no matter how competent you think you may be, getting a “ticket” is usually the only way to progress your instructional career. Other countries are even more specific. In France for example, it’s actually illegal for professionals to instruct without the right qualifications, and those found breaking the law can end up in jail.

This competency to lead doesn’t mean that risks associated with our sports are eliminated either, but we’re not unique in that. There are plenty of other activities - also with qualification frameworks - where people under instruction could seriously injure themselves; horse riding, rugby, scuba diving and skiing immediately spring to mind.

Most people’s first contact with awards is with their respective Mountain Leader Training Board (MLT). The BMC and Central Council for Physical Recreation jointly established the Mountain Leader Training Board in 1964, partly in response to the increasing numbers of groups being led in the hills throughout the 1960’s. Mountain Leader Training’s job is to administer mountain leadership qualifications for individuals taking parties to the hills on a regular basis. The BMC and MLT also believe that irrespective of whether a qualification is held, anyone acting in a leadership capacity needs to have personal experience. That’s why personal experience is a condition of entry for all the awards and the Guides’ scheme, and is required before you’re allowed on a training course. Remember too that training courses are just that though - training. You’re not qualified until you pass a formal assessment, just like driving lessons don’t qualify you to drive.

Why the variety?
For such a small nation, we Brits have a large variety of terrain types and weather, ranging from heat waves to arctic conditions, but all-too-often somewhere wet and windy in between. And the various awards, each with their different remits, reflect this. Some build on others in recognition that some activities are more serious than others. For example, in order to register for a Winter Mountain Leader award, a candidate must first hold the more basic Mountain Leader award, designed for summer conditions. T

here’s no point training someone to lead in winter if they don’t know how to navigate on a sunny day. Likewise, you may have a Single Pitch Award, but to then progress on to instructing multi-pitch climbs, you’ll need the Mountain Instructor Award, together with its pre-requisite of the Summer Mountain Leader.
National and international syllabuses outline each award’s scope and standards, and ensure that everyone is trained and assessed to the same standard. To keep tabs in this, Mountain Leader Training appoints the providers who deliver the courses, and then maintains quality control by requiring providers to attend specialist workshops and observing them when running courses. MLT also produce guidelines on running equivalent qualifications in recognition of the fact that the awards they administer may be considered inappropriate for those working in a specific range of activities or sites - in the case of the military for example.

Sometimes it also becomes apparent that a new award is required, when there is a recognised demand from user groups, and if it’s sanctioned by the BMC, other Mountaineering Councils, and stakeholders. Most recently, the Walking Group Leader award was launched in 2001 to provide a national qualification for leaders working with groups in non-mountainous terrain, such as Dartmoor or the Pennines.
It’s often overlooked that all MLT qualifications are logbook awards, and so only valid when backed up with current logged experience. As already mentioned, a qualification is just one way to demonstrate competence, and holding a leadership qualification does not make an individual infallible, nor does it mean that those being led are automatically safe from having accidents, especially when we consider the nature of mountain activities. Many walking leaders and climbing instructors have joined the newly formed Mountain Leaders Training Association to help keep up to date with current developments.

But recent government studies have helped to put the real risks into context. They estimate that schoolchildren take part in 7 -10 million days of adventure activities every year, the vast majority of which occur within the care of qualified leaders. Set against this, there is an average of one death a year arising from these activities plus a number of lesser accidents. To put this into perspective, two young people die in road traffic accidents every day.

What next?
Hopefully you’ve now got a clearer view of the framework as a whole, so keep reading to find out more about each award in detail, and real-life experience from people that have achieved them. And if you’re planning on going for an award - then good luck!

OPINIONS

Piers Aldous
Walking Group Leader (WGL)
I currently volunteer my time with the Buckinghamshire Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, helping out on their Gold training, expeditions and leader training. During October 2003 I underwent my WGL assessment. I’d completed my ML training a few years previously and was after a way to validate my experience, as I wasn’t yet ready for the ML assessment.

I have found the WGL a really useful stepping-stone. Over the last two years it has enabled me to take groups out onto the fells, feeling confident in my ability to look after them. The assessment wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be, and was taken over three days doing lots of navigation and some camping, along with a presentation on the types of stove.

Whilst working with the D of E and assisting with their expeditions, I found my logbook soon added up. When Gold participants plan their routes, they’re supposed to stay away from very steep ground and river crossings and this is where I’ve found the WGL most helpful - I haven’t needed to worry about river crossings or lots of rope work.

As a WGL holder I’m now able to run my own expeditions for the D of E award without having to rely on, or buy in, additional leaders. The young people I work with also feel happier in the knowledge that I am an MLTE award holder.

Miranda Meilleur
Single Pitch Award (SPA)
I first started instructing ten years ago when a friend asked me to help out with a climbing session. I had no qualifications and a limited amount of climbing experience, but soon realised that I loved climbing and working with people in the outdoors.

I got a full time job at a centre and they put me through my SPA training. At this time I hadn’t led that many climbs but I had got a lot of instructing experience. The training really fuelled my enthusiasm to lead more so I ventured into the mountains for multi-pitch climbing and scrambling, and traveled across the country to different areas like the Peak District and the Lakes. About a year later once I felt confident of my abilities, I booked an assessment and passed. It was a hard and exhausting two days and I was glad that I’d spent so much time preparing for it.

Having the SPA qualification has meant that I’ve always been able to find a job wherever I’ve moved to. I’ve worked in centres in Wales and the Lakes, provided young people in care with respite through the outdoors, instructed at climbing walls, given technical support to development training courses and assisted on SPA training courses.

I now live in North Wales and work at the Beacon Climbing Centre, which provides me with a wide variety of instructing work indoors and outside. It’s great to be able to work in this environment, to introduce people to climbing and that whole special world that it opens up for you.

Lou Wilkinson
Summer Mountain Leader (ML)
354, 355, 356. Stop counting! It’s 4am, I’ve just been awoken by the sound of rain pelting against flapping canvas, and I’m almost at the end of my ML assessment. The night navigation is over, I’m feeling fairly confident that I’ll pass, but I just wish that my brain would stop counting paces!

All in all, my experience of the ML assessment was a very positive one. Despite panicking that my night navigation would not be up to scratch - getting lost on my own in thick mist at 1am two nights before my assessment didn’t help - when it came down to it, everything went very smoothly and I even enjoyed myself.

Why did I do my Summer ML?  Well, I’d just done a PGCE in Outdoor Activities and French at Bangor University, and I’d been working as a freelance climbing instructor for a couple of years.  Having my ML as well as my SPA means that I can now take on hill walking work as well, and also take my climbing instruction to the next level. I’m planning to do my MIA very soon, enabling me to teach multi-pitch climbing, and you need the Summer ML first.

If I had one top tip, it’s don’t practise night navigation on your own.  In the dark in the mist, even sheep become scary, with their demonic glowing eyes, and their habit of bolting when you approach them, especially when your fading torch beam has failed to spot that they’re even there.

Vicci Chelton
Winter Mountain Leader (MLW)
Despite spending six full winter seasons living in Scotland walking and climbing 75% of the time, getting the winter ML almost felt impossible. The responsibility always felt much greater than leading groups in the summer, but going through the training and assessment process gave me a focus and a structure to consolidate all the experience and skills I’d gained.

Plus it put me under a realistic amount of pressure whilst dealing with those typical Scottish conditions. Passing the award gave me a real sense of achievement and confidence in what I do. Many people say it is the hardest award of them all, and I’m not going to disagree - you just have to earn it.
Of all of the work I do as an instructor, I find working in the winter the most stimulating. I enjoy the planning, the constant decision-making and the judgement skills required.

Most of all though, I like that great satisfaction that every day brings, whether it’s battling in blizzards, coping with poor conditions, or seeing a magical clear view of endless snowy peaks. The people are great too, and I love spending time on the hills with such a diverse range of people from all walks of life.

Paul Platt
(MIA & MIC)
In the late eighties I had the great opportunity of becoming a trainee instructor at an outdoor education centre in North Wales. I guess I was even more fortunate that the Head of Centre started dragging me up rock climbs in North Wales - I was hooked. The road to the Mountain Instructor Certificate (MIC) then began. In 1995 I passed the Mountain Instructor Award (MIA). This was fantastic; I was now getting paid for doing what I enjoyed most, going multi-pitch climbing and scrambling. However I was spending a huge amount of time in Scotland winter climbing and I wanted the MIC.

Now having the MIC I am able to work throughout the year climbing and mountaineering; I can’t think of a better lifestyle. I have my own company www.ascenttraining.co.uk through which I run courses inspiring people to undertake these fantastic activities, or train climbers and walkers to higher standards. I also regularly run MLTE courses and act as technical advisor for outdoor centres. Okay, so some days I have to get cold and wet but that’s a small price to pay for the days out with great people on crags and mountains and doing the things I love for a living. Come to think of it I even like getting cold and wet if the truth really be known.

Ian Fenton
International Mountain Leader (IML)
I’d led groups for a number of years, including trips to Europe, when I thought it was crazy to not take the appropriate qualification. For me this would be the International Mountain Leader award, so a quick phone call to MLTUK and the syllabus and all the registration paraphernalia arrived.
Having spent years walking and mountaineering in Europe, registration was simple and the next stop was the training course - a four-day course at Plas y Brenin. This comprised of one great mountain day out, a day and a half centre-based covering alpine weather, differences in emergencies out of the UK, huts, legal liabilities etc, and the final day was the “Speed Navigation Test’. An assessment within the training, and effectively a large-scale orienteering event, or a slow fell race where you have to know where you are at all times.

The assessment takes place out of the UK, it was Spain for me, and was made up of two days further training then a three-day assessment trip around Ordessa - superb! I’m really pleased I did it, and have spent the last 12 months working trips to Morocco, Spain, France and Italy - it could be a lot worse!

Andy Perkins
IFMGA Guide
Coming from a non-instructional background, I had quite a hard time on the Guides’ scheme at first. Learning how to look after folk in the mountains is very different to just climbing for yourself. But I was helped massively by mates who work at places like Plas y Brenin and Glenmore Lodge - thanks for the tips guys. The Scottish winter test was one of the most difficult weeks of climbing I’d ever done. And I guess it didn’t really help that I’d had a titanium bar and four bolts in my left leg after breaking it in a skiing accident the year before.

I’m now based in Chamonix and try to have as wide a variety of work as I can: off piste skiing and ice climbing in the winter, ski touring in the spring, alpine climbing in the summer and a commercial expedition to India every autumn. See www.climbex.u-net.com for details.

One of the few downsides of all this “dangerous walking” is that my rock climbing standard has plummeted. But 99% of the time, the work is great and I can’t imagine a better job than living and working in the white pointy parts of the world.   

Want to register for an award?
If you’re interested in finding out more about any of the awards, then your first step is to get in touch with the right people.

The Mountain Leader Training Boards (MLTs)
(SPA, WGL, ML, Winter ML )
Generally you should contact the Board responsible for the country where your live, but for winter ML you need to register specifically with MLT Scotland.
MLT England www.mlte.org 01690 720314
MLT Wales www.mltw.org 01690 720361
MLT Scotland www.mltscotland.org 01479 861248
MLT Northern Ireland n/a 02843 722158

MLTUK
(MIA, MIC, IML)
The coordinating body for all mountain training schemes in the UK, and also directly
responsible for the MIA, MIC, and IML.
www.mltuk.org 01690 720272

British Mountain Guides
www.bmg.org.uk 01690 720386

« Back