My journey to becoming a Summer Mountain Leader

In order to tell you about my journey to become a mountain leader, it’s probably important that I tell you a little bit about how I really caught the hillwalking bug…

Sometime over the past few years the hills and mountains have gone from being my hobby to becoming my life. My journey into hillwalking began as a means to manage a bad back and shortly after this, hillwalking became a big part of who I am. The mountains became my comfort zone, my happy place, my playground and my reset button.

Picture: Feeling great after tackling Lords Rake in the Lake District

I think the real turning point for me was when I found the confidence to go off and explore on my own, picking my own routes in ‘new to me’ areas of the Lake District. Being independent in the outdoors meant that I could go hillwalking whenever I wanted to… Excellent! The more I got outside, the more I realised the true extent of the health benefits of hill walking. My mind was clearer, I was more focused at work, I was more resilient to stress, I was happier. I realised I’d caught the bug when I started ‘bagging wainwrights’ and my every waking minute was spent hill walking, talking about hill walking, or planning new walks in the hills. I visited Snowdonia and the Scottish highlands for holidays and switched my car for an adventure van… adventure became a way of life!

Picture: Adventures in my van on the Isle of Skye

Experiencing first hand the benefits of the outdoors for my physical and mental health made me want to share these experiences with others and so in the height of the Covid-19 pandemic I started organising group walks (keeping to the rule of 6 of course!). Introducing people to the outdoors was rewarding and it was then that I decided I wanted to complete the Summer Mountain Leader award.

For those who aren’t familiar with the route to becoming a UK Summer Mountain Leader I’ll try my best to explain. The Mountain Leader scheme is run by Mountain Training. Mountain Training is a collection of awarding bodies for skills courses and qualifications in walking, climbing and mountaineering that operate across the UK and Northern Ireland. There are several awards four of which are walking awards; these are the Lowland Leader award, the Hill and Moorland Leader award, Summer Mountain Leader award and Winter Mountain leader award.

After reading the award handbook online I registered for the scheme one evening in July 2020 and was given access to my very own DLOG (digital log book used to record experience) which I began to fill in with my more recent hill days. The scheme advises that you should have 20 quality mountain days (QMD’s) logged before registering for the scheme and I had more than enough so I signed up to complete the 6 days training with Graham Uney Mountaineering in the Lake District the following month!

The Mountain Leader training is 6 fully packed days on the hill with your trainer/course director covering all aspects of the mountain leader syllabus. In a nut shell this is leadership skills, responsibilities, decision making and risk assessment. Planning, weather, hazards and emergency procedures. Access, conservation and the environment. Route planning, wild camping and technical skills, equipment, walking skills, rope work and a whole lot of navigation!

…Sounds like a lot doesn’t it? It is!

Navigation, as one would expect, is a major theme throughout each day of the mountain leader training. In fact my course director expertly weaved almost all aspects of the syllabus seamlessly into each day. Taking us on a mountain journey each day where we would come across various hazards… Rocky terrain – walking techniques! Scrambles – Dynamic risk assessment! Rivers – River crossings and Dynamic Risk Assessment!

Picture: Taking a lead on Hall's Fell ridge on Blencathra!

Other conversations throughout the day addressed the environmental aspect of the syllabus. We looked for and identified various flora, fauna and wildlife and I found something incredibly soothing about this part of the syllabus. It's something that later clicked into place for me when I read ‘Rewild Yourself’ by Simon Barnes… now a firm favourite for me.

I became obsessed with looking at where I was walking and I became more in tune with my surroundings, I was expertly practicing mindfulness on every single walk I went on and I didn’t even realise!

In his book Rewild yourself, Simon Barnes explains the joy of learning to identify butterflies ‘…learn to tell one species from another. Do that and you will never look at a butterfly in the same way … The more you see, the deeper and richer your sense of delight will become’. This is something that really struck a chord for me as I found this particularly pertinent to what I was experiencing on my ML journey. As you learn, and begin to catalogue species in your brain, your brain responds to these in a different way. There is knowledge, familiarity and, above all, connection.

Once I started to be able to identify certain creatures or flora and fauna, I became more curious, and more interested. Each time I looked, I looked a little closer, knew a little more and became more familiar with my wild surroundings!

On my training, an hour or so was set aside one morning for learning about the weather (using multiple sources, reading synoptic charts and planning around adverse weather conditions), followed by a session of safety on steep ground in the afternoon… aka rope work. There are three things covered in the syllabus for rope work and this is confidence roping, abseiling and belaying. It’s not as daunting as it may sound, I promise!

Picture: Confidence roping - blindfolded to reduce my confidence!

After four full-on days out on the hill it was time to pull it all together for an overnight expedition and… you guessed it! Night Nav!

Picture: Getting ready to head out for night navigation

But first we had a pretty full-on day of navigation in the mountains with our expedition kit on our backs… oh and did I mention there was a heat wave? It was a TOUGH day on the hill, starting from Mardale head in the Lake District our first stop was Small Water and I wasted no time in kicking off my kit and diving straight in! It was the only respite from the heat I had all day! It was around about this time that I made the decision that I would definitely not be sitting my assessment in the summer months!

Picture: Working out a navigation leg whilst basking in the sun

After completing the training there is a consolidation period whereby candidates take time to further develop their skills and knowledge acquired through the training. In order to complete the Summer Mountain Leader 5-day assessment, candidates should also have a minimum of 40 varied QMD’s in 3 different mountainous areas and a minimum of 8 nights camping, 4 of which must be wild camps.

Working my way through the various skills and slowly gaining the knowledge needed felt extremely rewarding; heading out for a full day in the mountains whatever the weather and navigating my way through the clag or the darkness gave me a huge sense of achievement. Going out alone and proving to myself that I could navigate across hostile terrains in adverse weather to such small features on a map gave me a huge boost in confidence of my own competence and capability.

Picture: Practicing rope skills one evening on Clougha Pike

Planning routes off piste, reading the map and the contours to find safe and accessible route became a game to play on each outing! Lots of ‘what if’ scenarios to figure my way though, and some scrambling and exploring on steep terrain!

It didn’t always go well though… On one walk I decided to re-route to drop into a valley over in the West Lakes after a very long and tough mountain day. It was a new area to me so the terrain was unfamiliar, perfect for a QMD! What later ensued can only be described as a desperate fight for survival in the valley of rushes and deep hidden bogs! … I have a feeling some of you will know the valley I’m referring to here? Mistakes and mishaps are all great learning opportunities though!

Picture: Exploring the 'Great Door' on Yewbarrow

The scheme also has a requirement that candidates have QMD’s from three different mountainous areas of the UK which meant lots of road trips in the van to Snowdonia and the Scottish Highlands! Every trip to the mountains was an opportunity to learn something new about the places I was visiting, about the geology of the rocks I was stomping over, the wildlife around me, about myself. The more I learnt the more I wanted to learn and as the knowledge began to develop it was extremely rewarding. The process of learning was mindful, I began training my eyes to spot sundews, butterworts, lichens, lizards… Learning about the nature and environment gave me a new perspective of our wild places.

Picture: Heading to the summit of the iconic Suilivan in the NW Highlands

I’m fortunate enough to have the Lake District on many doorstep and with some scheduled annual leave for some trips further afield, it wasn’t very long for me before I had a bumper packed DLOG of almost 100 QMD’s. In fact, it was three months between my training and my assessment and the reason my consolidation period was so short was partly due to my extensive hillwalking experience and navigation training prior to attending the ML training course.

I sat my assessment in November 2020, in lockdown 2… the one where most companies continued to operate, training courses and assessments were allowed to proceed and schools remained open, and lo and behold… It was an all-girl gang! Three to be precise as we were still on covid numbers.

Picture: Getting excited about the geology of the lakes

Despite the cooler temperatures, or perhaps because of them, the assessment week went great! A wet start for day one of our navigation and rope work assessment but the rain soon cleared in time for our 3 day expedition! Our course director made us feel at ease on the assessment and after the initial nerves wore off, it really just felt as though I was out in the mountains on a grand adventure with friends.

Picture: Map and compass which never left my hand for five days

The navigation was fun; being tested over the course of the three days was really enjoyable and when I kept hitting my targets, it was really rewarding. We had our night navigation assessment on Seathwaite fell, and much the same as the daytime navigation assessment, this consisted of us each taking a lead on navigation legs; once the leader reached their target the others then had to relocate themselves on the map!

Picture: Hitting my target during night navigation assessment

There was a brief moment on day three where I thought I might fail my assessment… I’ll explain!

After our second night wild camping my course director popped his head out of his tent and asked me if I had heard the men talking through the night. I hadn’t and told him as much. He went on to tell me that he was kept awake all night by male voices talking, he suspected they were further down the mountain and that the voices had been carried up the re-entrant we were camped above. He seemed irritable as he told me that he had stuck his head out the tent periodically through the night to try and work out where they must be but couldn’t figure this out. As he told me about his terrible night's sleep it suddenly dawned on me that the male voice he had heard was most likely my audio book that I had set to play (on a very low volume) and not in fact some noisy fellow wild campers. Whoops!

I had fallen asleep listening to this pretty quickly and had slept sound all night! I played him the audio book and he immediately recognised the voice, but luckily, he saw the funny side of this!

Picture: Tent pitched for a wild camp

Having a goal to work towards was a great motivation to get outdoors and the autonomy and personal development gained working though the award was invaluable for me as a hillwalker. Completing the award has opened up new opportunities for me and I have since enjoyed many working mountain days from group hikes and navigation training to organising and hosting corporate events.

Picture: Feeling tired after camp 2!

I thoroughly enjoyed my Mountain Leader training and assessment, and at no point did I feel under pressure or scrutiny. It was a really pleasant atmosphere conductive to learning and this continued through to the final day of assessment where I was still learning!

My training and assessment was split between my course director (Graham Uney) and two other Mountain Leaders, both of which were women. This was an incredibly pleasant surprise for me as there are not many female course directors, in fact there is a huge imbalance between men and women when it comes to working in the outdoors, something that organisations such as Mountain Training and The BMC are working to address. I have heard many stories about women feeling inadequate in the outdoors environment, or feeling as though they ‘don’t belong’, I think for many women this can be a deterrent when it comes to completing the Mountain Training schemes. I am fortunate to have never had this experience on my ML journey and each person who I have met, spoke to and learnt from has been helpful, welcoming and supportive. I have also found over the years that there are more and more female Mountain Leaders in particular, in fact there’s a whole community of us!

Now I that I am qualified as a Summer ML, I have had many enjoyable days leading social walks and wellbeing walks out in the mountainous areas of the UK. I have introduced people to the mountains and I have brought people together; this is everything I wanted and everything it was cracked up to be!

I find the vastness and beauty of the landscape healing. Being on top of a hill brings with it a sense of possibility. There is so much out there to explore and I feel privileged to be able to access these wild places and to share these experiences with others.

I think it would be quite fitting to finish this blog post back where it all really started for me, with Alfred Wainwright and his treasure trail books of the Lakeland fells.

“Always there will be the lonely ridge, the dancing beck, the silent forest; always there will be the exhilaration of the summits. These are for the seeking, and those who seek and find while there is still time will be blessed both in mind and body.”

Picture: Pike O' Stickle peeking through the low clouds