In March 2018 I achieved a long-held ambition, to become a Mountain Leader. How long it’s taken to reach the week-long Assessment can be traced in several ways.
I registered for the ML scheme in 2006. So that’s a journey of 12 years. On the other hand, I’ve been working my way around Scotland’s 3000ft high mountains, the Munros, and completed the Munros and their Tops on 22nd April 2022.
Perhaps it all really started when my parents took me up my first mountain in the Lake District when I was about 6 years old. I’ll not tell you how long ago that was, but certainly England had yet to win the football World Cup!
Whichever the time-frame, it’s been a long journey. To meet the standard requires more than a week’s assessment, including a 3 day/2 night expedition. There’s a training week plus an absolute minimum of 40 quality mountain days, (I’ve logged well over a hundred in the system and many more besides) and so much more relating to flora, fauna, land access law, environment, weather, first aid training, rope-work, river crossing, group management and leadership, route planning, night navigation and on. Extensive and rightly so given the responsibility the award confers.
So, the ‘now what’ question. Simple, I want to take people to the hills and mountains of the UK, particularly those who don’t believe themselves capable of going high or face challenges in so doing. To lead and inspire them to look and climb upwards.