Mountaineering Ethics in Scotland
- Introduction
- Adventure and Participation
- Risk and risk Management
- Self Reliance
- Rescue
- Instruction / Leadership and Risk
- Adventure=Experience=safer activity
In order to maintain the freedoms espoused by WH Murray, the Scottish community of mountaineering and hill walking operates as an informal group of like minded individuals, where knowledge and experience and skills are passed on to others in an informal, unregulated, un-certificated manner. There remains no outside regulation of these activities when walkers and climbers operate in this way, either as individuals out on the hill or through clubs.
There does remain a ‘duty of care’ that all participants have to each other and if anyone acts without such care and causes needless accidents they may expose themselves to legal action and liability, see the MCofS Guidance on Safety and Liability (Update due 2008).
However, hill walking and mountaineering clubs in membership of the MCofS are not like the equivalent clubs for gymnastics, football or athletics, particularly in regard to introducing children to the sport. Club Members of the MCofS offer beginners an opportunity to gain experience from other like-minded individuals, but not with qualified Instructors.
Few clubs will accept children on their meets, unless they are accompanying their parents, who are members and who will take responsibility for them. See the Kids section.
Opportunities to be instructed in skills of hill walking and climbing (e.g. navigation, rope work, etc) by those qualified to National Standards are available in the commercial sector. See National Qualifications.
Despite all modern technological advances mountaineering as a recreation still involves RISK. So why do people wish to do it? Perhaps because risk is lacking in everyday life but also because of a desire to travel into life affirming natural environments where risk is always present and so mountaineers need to learn how to cope with risk.
Modern changes in climbing and mountaineering (e.g. use of bolts in developing sport climbing) may have reduced risk for some disciplines and many walkers and mountaineers may not always wish to risk a confrontation with life-threatening natural hazards (e.g. bad weather), but there remains an underlying element of adventure, which is vital in order that the activity remains attractive to many of its exponents.
The MCofS have adopted the following statement:
“The MCofS recognises that climbing and mountaineering are activities with a danger of personal injury or death. Participants in these activities should be aware of and accept these risks and be responsible for their own actions and involvement”
Fundamental to being as safe as possible whilst undertaking mountaineering, climbing and hill walking (i.e. reducing the attendant risk - but noting at all times that it is impossible to eliminate the risk), is the ability to:
- recognise a hazard
- assess the risk of that hazard
- manage the risk by your own actions
- recognise that this process requires developing judgement.
“To have an adventure and survive requires good judgement, good judgement comes from experience. Experience of course, is the result of poor judgement.”
Geoff Tabin
It is important to understand that in order to become a safer participant it is necessary to experience risk and make mistakes of judgement that lead to learnt skills.
But, serious accidents most commonly occur when people attempt an activity which they know little about and are unprepared for. The MCofS therefore recommends a progressive approach to introducing beginners to different aspects of the sport.
See:
- The Mountain Safety pages for courses on skills at different levels.
- Winter Mountaineering in Scotland for an example.
The most fundamental premise in climbing in the UK is that anyone undertaking the sport must do so with the understanding that they are responsible for their own actions. If it all starts to go wrong, it’s up to the individual to act. A climber should never blame anyone but themselves when things do go horribly wrong.
But there is a strong desire amongst walkers and climbers to help each other be safer in the hills by sharing their experiences and relying on their fellows to ‘watch their back’. This and the ideal that a walker helps another walker they find in distress may seem a contradiction to self reliance but the importance of a mountain partnership of this kind coupled with a background based in self reliance makes for a safer adventure, whilst ensuring there is no need for any form of certification or accreditation to participate: the activity remains self regulating.
It is the self reliance / ‘fellowship’ ethic in the UK that has meant we have retained a voluntary mountain rescue service. Members of that service are mountaineers, hill walkers and climbers themselves. They are ‘experts’ in that they have a huge bank of personal skills and they are ‘professionals’ because of the manner in which they operate. The voluntary nature of the rescue service is valued very highly. See the ‘Rescue & Self Reliance’ advice from the MCofS.
Instruction/Leadership and Risk
There are a series of national recognised qualifications in the outdoor industry. They are operated on a national basis by a series of Mountain Training Boards (MLTS, MLTE, MLTW, MLTI and MLTUK). The qualifications were set up to meet the requirement of ensuring a minimum standard of competency and skill in those who would be ‘instructing’ others in the outdoors in a professional capacity. They cover the full range of environments from walking at low level (Walking Group Leader Award), walking in summer (Mountain Leader Award), walking in winter (Winter Mountain Leader Award), walking on European mountains (European Mountain Leader Award), to mountaineering in summer (Mountaineering Instructor Award), and mountaineering in winter (Mountaineering Instructor Certificate). They have now expanded to include climbing on outcrops and on indoor facilities (Single Pitch Award) and only at artificial walls (Climbing Wall Award).
Further details of all the awards are available from the MLTUK
These awards are not mandatory and companies or individuals can employ instructors without awards if they chose, but the National Qualifications are an employer’s guarantee of quality. Due to the need to maintain a strong duty-of-care approach by anyone operating under their award, delivery must be made as safe as possible. As a result such training ‘skills people up’ for the hard skills required in the hills and the awards are recognised by the MCofS as a good way of ensuring quality and safe delivery. But we recognise that this does not, in itself make safer participants: this ultimately involves adventure and taking risk.
Adventure = Experience = Safer Activity
The final part of the jigsaw in becoming a safer mountaineer (after having learnt the essential skills) comes from developing judgement, and judgement can only be gained by experience in situations of adventure.
Participants need to go out and ‘do it’ with other like-minded individuals and that is where other MCofS members, whether club or individual, can help.
Awards are not required for informal ‘instruction’ within MCofS clubs or by individuals; in these circumstances members are ‘sharing knowledge’.
Clubs and MCofS events offer information, education, and support and provide the opportunities to have such adventures. Beginners then can gain judgement through a ‘mentoring’ process.