Introduction to Scottish Winter
Mountaineering Courses
Who are these courses suitable for?
They are aimed at summer hill walkers who want to extend their
experience and knowledge to include the Scottish mountains
under full winter condidtions. You should be able to cope
with long days on the hill, have experience of UK mountains
in summer conditions and have a working knowledge of map and
compass use.
Who will be instructing on the Courses?
This course is being run jointly by Keith Fleming of Mountain
Activities and Matt Craig of Gateway Outdoors. Keith is a
Mountain Instructors Certificate (MIC) and International Mountain
Leader (IML) Award holder and has over 20 years of Scottish
winter experience. Matt is an IML and Winter Mountain Leader
Award holder.Both are fully insured providers of outdoors
pursuits (up to £5 million) and AALA licensed. Matt
will be running the course and providing most of the instruction,
under the guidance of Keith, and the course will be run according
to Association of Mountaineering Instructors Award (AMI) guidelines
for trainees.
Where are the Courses based?
The course is held on the eastern side of the
Cairngorm National Park near Strathdon, giving access to both
the northern half of the park from Aviemore and the southern
half from Braemar.
Please Contact us for March 2009 dates.
Course cost: £250.00 attendance
only. You are responsible for booking your own accomodation,
food and travel.
A week course covering skills in more depth and possibly including
an overnight in a bothy or snowhole
What is the proposed programme?
Evening 1: meet the other course
members, sort out personal kit, fit Crampons etc.
Day 1: Briefing for the day. Skills on the walk will include:
safe use of technical equipment, ice axe arrest techniques,
step cutting, glissading and other skills appropriate to the
snow conditions and weather. Evening talk on avalanches and
winter weather.
Day 2: Briefing to include avalanche information and weather.
This day will be slightly more demanding and take in a peak
whilst putting into practice the skills covered on the 1st
day, plus navigation and route choice, avalanche awareness
etc.
Day 3: We try to incorporate days 1 & 2 to produce a "quality
mountain day" in the Cairngorms.
Day 4 & 5: A mountain expedition. The aim is to have a
"quality" day out, including a night in a mountain
bothy or snow hole. We would walk out the next morning and
making our way back to the cottage for late lunch and pack
up to depart around 3:00 - 4:00pm, unless staying over. However,
this is very weather dependent.
Staff ratios will be a maximum of 1:6
General Information
What is covered by the cost of the
courses?
All instruction
& provision of group safety equipment.
What is not covered by the cost of
the courses?
All travel and accommodation costs. Personal equipment,
technical winter equipment (e.g. boots and crampons, axes),
food and any insurance to cover personal injury, personal
effects and/or cancellation.
Transport to and from Heughead is not covered by the cost
of the course. However, we will try to co-ordinate lift sharing
to keep costs down. Transport whilst on the course will be
divided amongst participants (see booking info).
to see Booking Information and Conditions
to
book this course
|
