Welcome to your course notes for your scrambling on Skye
Thanks for booking with us to take on some of the classic scrambles and summits on Skye. For me this is the place where as a young and impressionable teenager I did my first rock climb, the Inaccessible Pinnacle, in the company of a local guide. I have been back every year since and am always keen to pass on the enthusiasm for the Cuillin that stems from that day.
Rob
Location: Isle of Skye, Scotland
Ratio: 1:2
Length: 5 days
What does the course cover?
We will take you on classic days out with options including The Inaccessible Pinnacle, Pinnacle Ridge, Clach Glass – Blaven Traverse, The Cioch, Sgur Alasdair and any of the other Munro summits or classic scrambles/rock climbs that you have your eye on. The course is great preparation if you are planning a full ridge traverse or your first summer Alpine trip and focuses on as much mileage as possible on some of the best scrambles in the UK. We often spend a day on the sea cliffs too so that legs can be rested mid week. I run the course myself and am joined by other instructors to keep the ratios small. This gives a nice sociable week and lots of options for different routes over the 5 days.
We meet each day at 8:30am in Carbost and will email you the meeting place the week before the trip. We generally finish by 5:00pm each day depending on the weather .
What about accommodation?
You will need to book your own accommodation on the island. We tend to meet at the village of Carbost each day so if you can be close by it will save on driving for you. There are a range of options here.
Who runs the course?
I direct this course myself. I hold the WMCI and IML qualifications and have many years of practical experience of working with a wide range of clients. I am also assisted by other local Mountaineering Instructors who are good friends of mine so that you get a balanced view and some different opinions and so that the whole course is run at a 1:2 ratio.
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.
Kit List
If we are very lucky and have perfect weather there are things that you might not end up using but more likely you will be very glad to have them! There will probably be things on here that seem odd but bear with me – all will become clear on your course!
Rucksack – 35 to 45 litres (room for your kit plus a rope, helmet and harness)
Waterproof jacket
Waterproof trousers
Walking boots
Drink
Lunch
Hat and Gloves
Thermal top – do not wear cotton Mountain Trousers – no cotton please
Fleece jumper
Fleece jacket or synthetic
1 x spare gloves
1 x spare warm layer
Spare food
Personal First Aid & sanitary supplies
Sunglasses and Sun Cream (weather dependant!)
Blizzard Survival Jacket (Emergency kit)
We will provide ropes, harnesses and helmets and all other specialised equipment if appropriate. If you have any of your own gear then you are welcome to bring it along although we will only use our ropes.
Jewellery
Remove all jewellery before joining your course as it can snag on rocks, trees etc which can be nasty! If you do not want to remove a wedding ring then tape it up at the start of each day – climbers have lost fingers by getting rings caught!
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. This is for insurance purposes. I am always happy to offer people a lift as a friend and if you have a car I may ask you to use it if we have more people than seats. There is free parking all day behind the Pinnacle Cafe so bring your car with you and we can sort out lifts on the day. We also occasionally use public transport so a small amount of cash might be useful.
Cancellation
Your booking is subject to our terms and conditions. As a small business unfortunately we cannot offer postponements and do stick to our cancellation policy if you need to cancel your course space. The BMC offer a very good insurance policy that will cover you for trip cancellation and personal injury.
Insurance: We do not include insurance within our course fees. For all overseas trips you will require an E111 and specialist mountaineering insurance and we will require a copy of the policy. We also recommend insurance for our UK courses. Our approved insurance contractors are: BMC: 0870 0104878 or The Foundry: 0114 2755806
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.