This week I completed my IML Summer Assessment in the stunningly beautiful Swiss Alps. We spent the last 3 nights going hut-to-hut at the head of the Zinal Valley. The assessment followed the fairly MLTUK style typical format of testing your group leading and technical responsibilities … this with the extra dimension of being on foreign soil, asking you to do some of in a foreign language of your choice. My school-boy French was deamed ‘just adequate’.
Unfortuanetly for me the IML Assessment has changed this summer, the old-style did it all in one verfy full week. The new sylabus now means you have double the trainng and double the assessment. Undoubtedly you come out having been more thouroghly assessed, it just remains to be seen whether the very substantial increase in commitments (and money!) impacts the numbers going for it. I hope not I’ve really enjoyed it and (university time willing) hope to complete the winter portion this year before I go into schools.
The IML is the last of my ‘trilogy’ of gap year awards following on from the ML and ML(W) – to those who are thinking of doing these, whether for personal or professional, I’d thoroughly recommend it. Not only does it cement best practice in the way you operate in the mountains – you also learn loads both from the instructors and your peers.
Posted by Andrew Duff 
