How To Use Prusiks

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How To Use Prusiks

Some years ago, I was sea-cliff climbing at Gogarth in north Wales. My second was on a tricky overhanging pitch, and he was really struggling. We couldn’t communicate because of the background noise from the sea, and I couldn’t lower him back down as the tide was coming in. My only option was to escape the system using a prusik loop, climb down the rope using a prusik loop, build another belay and haul my second up to it using – you’ve guessed it – a prusik loop.

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Six Top Tips For Glacier Travel

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Six Top Tips For Glacier Travel

A glacier is a constantly moving river of ice, with crevasses - gaps and cracks - that are always changing. Glaciers are formed where the accumulation of snow in the winter exceeds the rate of melting in the spring. They can be either dry, where the bare ice is visible, and so the crevasses are easy to see, or wet, where the ice is covered by snow and crevasses are hidden. Snow bridges form over the crevasses in the winter, and these begin to thin out when the warmer spring weather comes. Dry glaciers are much more straightforward to travel across because the hazards are obvious and easy to see, whereas wet glaciers are more problematic. In the high Alps you’ll often have to travel over glaciated terrain as part of your mountaineering day, and it is essential that you are well-prepared for it.

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Who Needs A Mountain Mentor?

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Who Needs A Mountain Mentor?

I love being asked for help and advice from people who climb for pleasure, or who want to know how to work out the next step in their outdoor career. I benefited from such advice when I was starting out as a climber forty four years ago aged twelve, and as an outdoor instructor thirty nine years ago, and now that I have built up so much knowledge from my personal adventures and from working as an International Mountain Guide for twenty plus years, I’m super-keen to pass it all on. Most successful people, whatever their field of interest, will probably have had a mentor at some point on their journey. Mentoring is the answer to the problems of missed goals, lost momentum, inability to identify the next step, and failed plans. A mentor should be someone who has done the things you’re striving to achieve, who is truly passionate about the outdoors, who will encourage a growth mindset, and who will challenge you.

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10 Top Tips for Progressing from Mountain Leader to Mountaineering & Climbing Instructor

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10 Top Tips for Progressing from Mountain Leader to Mountaineering & Climbing Instructor

Congratulations! You’ve passed your assessment, and you’re now a Mountain Leader. That might be as far as you want to go with outdoor qualifications, and that’s fine – well done for getting this far. But on the other hand you might want to progress further and go for Winter Mountain Leader (winter ML), Mountaineering & Climbing Instructor Award (MCI), or International Mountain Leader (IML). We’ll be focusing on MCI here. It is a big step up, but here are some tips to make it easier.

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