andyduff.com

Just completed my Winter Mountain Leader Assessment in the Cairngorms. Probably the toughest couple of days I’ve had on the Scottish hills in Winter. Sure I’ve had worse weather, I’ve been out for longer days, I’ve got more lost, been in worse snow and had many other bad things before .  But it’s the stress of these things that really does my head – your’re being judged by experts and observed by your peers in hard situations doing activities that you really don’t want to fail at.  Anyway it’s over now, I had a brilliant time and I would thoroughly recommend it.

I did both the training and the assessment with Glenmore Lodge . The facilities in the lodge are top, all the staff were excellent and the ‘bonding’ with the rest of the gang definitely makes it an experience that will stick for a lifetime.

 Just finished my Summer Mountain Leader Assessment. It’s something that I’ve wanted to do for a while; both personally and to help with school trips. While it wasn’t that hard on anything really new in terms of my mountain skills …  I did find the fact that what you are being tested on is often not your ability to do something – but your ability to manage a group. Certaoinly has given me a lot of confidence and I learnt a lot.

Most folk tend to do their ML with the big centres; PYB and Glenmore Lodge, I did this with Pete Hill. Ok you don’t get the same pampering wrt to facilities as at the Lodge – but Pete and the other staff were excellent and I would thoroughly recommend this as an alternative to always using the big centres. 

Now what about that Winter one …