an account of my ml assessment

Thu, Oct 11, 2007

The Summer Mountain Leader, ML(S) assessment is spread over five days, a couple of which are spent around Glenmore Lodge, with a three day, two night expedition into the heart of the Cairngorms. The first day we eased into some micro-nav, finding bumps and squiggles on the map and acting out and dealing with first aid scenarios. I had the Rab Vapour Rise top on and was starting to feel like a boil in the bag as the weather was hot and sunny. The second half of the day was spent on river crossings, waist deep in a local river. I decided to specialise on the line astern as I don’t really like the cramped, stand on others’ feet methods you get. I certainly don’t like the rotating huddle where you end up with your back to the flow, which hammers into the back of your knees and can collapse your legs. No, for me, the line astern works every time. If the river isn’t too bad, I’m quite happy taking 3 across at a time, making my own way back over and taking the next 3 across. If the river is too bad for that, then I’ll use the rope but it has to be getting desperate to produce the rope and you could argue that, rather than having a group sitting beside a raging torrent for an hour or so, worrying and getting cold, with the chance of going under, you’d be better off taking an hour’s detour to find an easier crossing.

The second day was spent around the Fiachaill Ridge, assessing party management on steep ground and rope techniques. The weather was stunning. Not a cloud in the sky and a 25mph wind, with gusts maybe 30mph. The sun, combined with the chill wind gave the day that end of summer feel. It had a really nice atmosphere. Again, I’d decided to stick with one system. An overhand on the bight for tying myself into the anchor and a stoppered slipknot for tying in the “client”. That way, if you’ve got a load of clients to bring up a rock face, you can just chuck the end down and each can step into the loop and slip the knot tight, without having to worry about adjusting figure of eights or overhands. It doesn’t work for confidence roping though as you need a solid loop of rope to grab round the waist if required. For the confidence roping later in the day I was surprised to use a 2m sling. Another candidate uses this all the time and so, instead of hauling out the rope, I just used that. Worked very well too, with an overhand round the client and two overhands further up the sling to control the distance. The rope assessment was brilliant, having to bring another candidate up a very nice bit of granite scrambling. I nipped up, found an anchor, jumped up and down on it, pulled it this way and that, whacked it with my boots then jumped up and down on it a few more times. It was solid! Whether I’d actually take a client up something like that is another matter entirely but my skills on such terrain were assessed nonetheless. An essential skill to have too.

The next 3 days were spent on the expedition, with a romp in high winds and low cloud and rain into the heart of the Cairngorms. As we came out of the cloud just above The Saddle, Loch A’an appeared from the gloom, cat’s claws scouring the grey surface. It was a fantastic sight. A truly atmospheric and magical place. On the path up to Etchachan, the massive buttresses on the south of the loch looked for all the world like a series of spaceship docking stations. Billowing masses of grey cloud flew out between massive dripping grey buttresses, forming what looked like two huge hangars in the cliffs. On a day like that, you could imagine spaceships from another world docking, refuelling and continuing on their interstellar journey, unbeknown to the rest of the world, such a remote place is the head of Loch A’an.

Loch A’an is truly a special place. There’s no indication of man’s effects anywhere although you can reach it quite easily from the Coire Cas car park or the top of Cairngorm. When you’re there, it is a wild and remote place. I remember thinking back to the Great Climb event that took place here not that long ago and was grateful that they had removed everything they had carried in to do the filming. When you see such a remote and unspoiled place such as this, any human detritus instantly breaks the spell. There is none here though and the spell stayed with me.

We had two night nav assessments over the 3 days and the first, stomping around Ben MacDui was, in the words of the assessor, just about as bad as it gets on summer ML! You couldn’t see more than 6 feet in the blackness of thick cloud and driving rain. I used every tool I had in my nav toolbox, aspect of slope, pacing, timing, the works. It was very very tiring but immensely satisfying as each technique resulted in being where I was asked to be. By the time we got back to the tents at Loch Etchachan it was gone midnight and I was shattered. It had been a 12 hour day, with just the odd grub stop. No big lunch stops or hanging around. It was nav nav nav for 12 hours! And you can’t shut off when it’s not your turn to lead as you have to show the assessor where you think you are at the end of each leg, no matter who is leading. So it’s 12 hours of total concentration. It really does push you to your limits when the weather is so foul.

At the sappers' bothy near the summit of Ben Macdui.

The second night nav was a complete contrast. We had a brew on the stoves at the Ptarmigan as the sun set and then wandered down the ridge under a cloudless, black and starry sky. A fantastic experience. We eventually collapsed into the tents after another 10 hour navigation day. It was mostly in thick cloud and rain again but as we approached Cairngorm the cloud cleared and it turned into a fantastic evening, stoves purring, steam rising into the cold air and banter over hot cups of tea. No-one else around and the sun slowly setting over the hazy mountains. Superb!

Over the 5 days I made friends with a really nice bunch of people. We were split into two groups, Steve, Steve, Neil and Dave and Catherine, Katie and me. We had a superb time. I was totally immersed in the mountains for the whole time and I will remember the expedition for a long time to come.

You can see pictures taken by others on the assessment here. I didn’t take any - too busy worrying about passing!