Course Notes: Scottish Winter Mountaineering & climbing
Welcome to your course notes for your winter climbing or mountaineering course in Scotland.
The Scottish winter season is special, it brings together all thats great about the UK mountains, accessibility, wilderness, beauty and challenge. Climbing & Mountaineering in winter are a culmination of many skills, the top end of the mountain apprenticeship and give some challenging yet rewarding days out – you will love it!
These course notes set out the full details of the course and provide some general information, kit list and transport details. I hope you find them useful.
Rob
SCOTTISH WINTER MOUNTAINEERING
This winter mountaineering course is based in Scotland for people that want to learn the skills to enjoy grade I to III ground in winter.
Location: Scotland – Fort William
Ratio: 1:2
Length: 3 days
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SCOTTISH WINTER MOUNTAINEERING & CLIMBING WEEK
Location: The Highlands of Scotland
Ratio: 1:2
Length: 1 week
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COURSE STAFFING
Huw and I run all of these courses ourselves and we hold the WMCI and occasionally work with friends who hold the same qualifications.
WHERE IS THE COURSE HELD?
We run the course in the Highlands of Scotland from our winter base in Fort William. We are very handy for Ben Nevis, Aonach Mor and Glen Coe and will often make the most of the ski centre chairlifts on the first day to maximise the time spent on the snow.
WHAT ABOUT ACCOMMODATION?
Accommodation is not provided as this allows us to keep the course cost low and you can then arrange accommodation to suit your budget. Winter is a quiet time in Fort William and you will generally get some good deals on booking.com or Airbnb. It is also worth checking the travel forum to see if others fancy sharing accommodation for the week. https://www.facebook.com/groups/316728059317615/
TRANSPORT
I don’t provide transport as part of the course price and I don’t charge a fee if I give you a lift. If you have a car I may ask you to use it if we have more people than seats. We also occasionally use public transport so a small amount of cash might be useful. When booking your accommodation make sure that you can get to and from the meeting point each day
WHATS INCLUDED?
The course fee includes instruction and use of specialist equipment such as helmets and harnesses.
pre-course preparation
These courses are very physical and you will need to do some training in advance. We will walk about 15km a day with over 1000m of height gain. This is made more physical when walking in snow and colder temperatures and your rucksack will be much heavier than in summer. As well as your usual climbing kit you will have axes, crampons, helmet and a 60m rope to carry. The only way to be fit enough to enjoy the whole course is to have days out in the mountains that build up to this level of output. In the weeks building upto the course you will need to get out and get some big mountain days in your legs, carrying a heavy pack.
Here are some stats to give you an idea of the fitness required.
- Average of 1000m per day height gain
- Average days 8 hours on the mountain
- 2.5 hours walk to the start of the routes on Ben Nevis
- Covering 40 miles per week
- 220 flights of stairs per day in iPhone speak
- You need to be able to walk at a steady speed of 300m height gain per hour
- Your rucksack will weigh at least 6kg more in winter than summer
Technical Skills: Practise putting on a harness, tying into the end of the rope and tying a Clove Hitch. Once you have them cracked, practise in the dark and wearing gloves.
Pre-requirements & Risk
We have set out pre-requirements in the course description at the time of booking and we ask that you are currently hill fit when joining this course.
The course is run at a 1:2 ratio and the safety of each client and the instructor will be contributed to by the pre-requirements that we have in place.
On this course we will be using a wide range of techniques to manage your safety.
Included in these techniques is the use of the rope. We protect hard sections as short (roped) pitches and move together, with great care, on the easier, broken ground using short roping techniques. Short roping involves the use of the rope to prevent a slip turning into a fall. At times we will also be soloing on mountaineering terrain. There is an inherent risk in all of these techniques and we will chat through our decision making with you on the hill.
Your own movement skills are a fundamental part of the safety system and these are directly affected by fitness and previous experience.
Insurance
We highly recommend having a policy that covers you for personal accident and cancellation. We use The BMC for our own cover.
Scottish Winter Conditions
The Scottish winter mountain environment is unique, beautiful and harsh in equal measures. The reason the winter mountains are accessible to us on foot is as a result of a continual process of freeze/thaw cycles. Throughout the winter we see snowfall followed by thaw, followed by a freeze with more snowfall and so the cycle goes on. This means our mountains don’t require skis or snowshoes to access them in winter – giving considerably better access than the Alps or North America for example. It also creates incredible walking and climbing on neve – refrozen snow created as a result of this cycle.
These conditions are by their nature ephemeral and always have been. We visit Scotland and run our courses between January and March because this is the most reliable winter season. We can’t guarantee what conditions you will get but we do guarantee to work hard to put you in the right place at the right time, to make the very best of the conditions that we do get, to increase your knowledge and skillset and to give you a good time – even if there is a lack of snow! We will teach you how to make the most of what is on offer in the hope that you fall in love with the Scottish winter mountains in the same way we have.
Kit List for both courses:
Please make sure that you bring everything that is on it this list, I have included a video where I run through stuff to help answer any questions:
Waterproof Jacket – full weight breathable model preferred.
Overtrousers – with 3/4 or full length side zips.
Rucsac 30-40l capacity – a number of different sized drybags are useful
Winter Boots: If your aspirations lie in winter mountaineering style routes then a B2 boot will be fine. If you aspire to climb harder routes (grade 3 upwards) then you will find a B3 boot is better for the actual climbing but less comfortable for the walk in and out.
(The conditions will be the main decider in what we get done but we will work hard to match your experience, aspirations, weather and conditions to give you a great week.)
Socks
Gaiters
Wicking thermal top.
2 Warm fleeces or equivalent.
Mountain trousers.
2 pairs of gloves that are warm yet flexible enough to tie ropes, clib Krabs etc
Beanie or woolly hat
Spare Mittens especially if you suffer from cold hands.
Water Container approx 1l, or .75l flask.
Headtorch + batteries
Map, Compass + Whistle
Personal medications + blister kit
Ski Goggles + sun glasses
Blizzard Survival Jacket (Emergency kit)
#Crampons
We use Grivel G12 and Petzl Lynx
#Ice Axe & Hammer
We both use DMM Apex axe and hammer for climbing. We also rate DMM Flys and Petzl SumTecs.
# Harness
# Helmet
We both use Petzl Meteor
# Items can be hired locally. Just Google “axe and crampon hire Fort William” or you will find places that hire them and post them to you.
Please arrive with your kit, ready to go on the first morning and that make sure that your crampons fit your boots – we are keen to maximise your days out on the hill and daylight hours are short in the winter months so we aim to get out on the hill as efficiently as possible.
Kit Video
In this video (click link if it hasn’t loaded below) I go through the kit that is on the kit list, why we have it, how we use it, what to wear and when. It is 30 minutes long but consider it the first half an hour of your course: 
BMC Article on Risk & Safety in climbing & mountaineering.
The British Mountaineering Council (BMC) is the representative body in the UK for hill walkers, climbers and mountaineers. It has produced a Participation Statement for anyone involved in walking, climbing or mountaineering to say that:
The BMC recognises that climbing and mountaineering are activities with a danger of personal injury or death. Participants in these activities should be aware of and accept these risks and be responsible for their own actions.
If you join one of our courses you acknowledge and accept these risks and so we thought a few facts and figures might be useful in explaining what you are accepting.
Injuries
Injuries are possible in climbing, hill walking and mountaineering, as in all sporting activities, as a result of over-training, inappropriate training regimes, or poor technique as well as those that might be sustained during a slip or fall, or if something or someone falls on a person.
Risk
Risks need to be put in context. There are currently about 5 million climbing wall user visits annually and it has bee estimated that between the 1960s and 2005 there were approximately 50 million climbing wall user visits in the UK alone. During that period there was only one fatality at a wall in England and Wales. There are 13 million young people in this country. Of the approximately 700 fatal accidents that occur every year, there is approximately one child death per year in organised adventurous activities in comparison with 457 land transportation accidents (National Statistics).
Risk is an integral part of the activity and can play a vital role in helping young people to acquire these extremely important life skills. Minimising the risk boils down to having the right level of skill and experience relative to the difficulty of the activity. Our courses will help you to understand and assess these risks for yourself. Accidents can happen due to circumstances over which the climber has no control, such as a rockfall, and in these events first aid training can make all the difference.
Accident rates
Because experienced climbers strive very hard to know their own limitations, the sport enjoys remarkably low accident rates. Incidents that make news headlines often involve individuals operating in environments for which they were ill-prepared, and this can give a somewhat skewed impression of the dangers involved in the sport. Many of the ‘climbers’ reported in the media as having been involved in accidents, died or got lost in mountainous areas are not dedicated climbers. Often they are tourists who have gone out walking or people who don’t have much experience in the mountains. Therefore some of the tragedies that hit the headlines may reflect poorly on dedicated mountaineers who are more likely to be better prepared and not as likely to require mountain rescue.
Even on a course there is a need for personal responsibility and self reliance in all mountaineering activities. We will have contingency plans in the event of an emergency and are first aid trained but you should also carry basic first aid equipment as detailed in your course notes. All of our courses aim to teach you to assess the risks for yourself, to make you an independent climber/mountaineer or hillwalker but there are some risks that we cannot completely remove.
If you feel uncomfortable at any time you should say so and don’t be afraid to ask why we are doing what we are doing. There is no pressure whatsoever for you to take part in any activity that you do not want to take part in.
The BMC has produced an introductory booklet for parents of young people who participate in climbing-related activities.