Winter Skills—What is the Club’s Role in Training?

Amanda Welch

On the Cairngorms meet in January Alison and I took the opportunity to do a winter skills training weekend run by Tim Hakim, a club member and instructor. I am aware that the issue of the club offering subsidised training has been an area for debate so I thought it might be useful to add our perspective to the discussion.

Firstly I have to say the course was very well organised. A preparation meeting on the Wednesday before gave us the chance to check we had the correct gear and that the gear actually fitted. It turned out Alison ’s crampons weren’t fitted correctly to her boots despite having been set by the shop assistant last year. It is best to find this out in the warmth of a leisure centre rather than on a day out.

I wasn’t able to make this meeting but the info was backed up with a briefing sheet that covered topics like the weather and avalanche dangers, what to wear and carry, packing a rucksack, choosing crampons and axes, food and drink and a whole host of other top tips and handy hints. Tim also gave us a laminated 1:50000 map of the Northern Corries that included advice on pacing and timing on the back. Importantly the prep meeting gave Alison the chance to ask Tim questions and allay fears and for Tim to check exactly what we wanted to get out of the weekend.

On the Saturday we went to Coire an t-Sneachda and covered step kicking, self arrest with and without an ice axe! What a laugh we had with the ice axe arrests, on our fronts, backs, feet first, head first, you name it we did it. The highlight came when Alison was sliding down head first on her front and her top got stuck on the ice—very cold! Had we had a camera to hand we could have added a whole new perspective to page 3 for this magazine.
The thing that really struck home for us on that day was the ‘faff’ factor. I had heard people talk about this but I really hadn’t grasped the concept until I was experiencing it myself first hand. I had a broken right thumb so my dexterity was reduced anyway but everything was more complicated than expected: sorting out layers of clothes was a hassle in the snow and strong winds with gloves on—I’ve got to learn to get that right before I set off next time!

Gloves featured high as a make or break bit of kit for me, cold ends of fingers or gloves that didn’t fit quite right just made the faff factor worse. Surprisingly those new gloves we’d got for the trip didn’t always do what they said they would and cold wet hands further reduced dexterity.

We did however have a great time going up, down and sideways on the snow and ice with our crampons and axes. As for eating and drinking—well there were multiple problems like finding the time, too cold and doing it all with gloves on, yes this could be the start of a new faff plan diet!

As the day progressed it also become evident that I had left an essential piece of kit, my new ‘shewee’, at home in the bathroom. Never again will I forget that—it is very breezy for us girls and, I think, so much easier for you blokes. We did consider getting catheterised for the next trip but that may be a bit extreme and Alison’s other suggestion of trying out my ‘shewee’ next time may be taking friendship a little too far.

On to Sunday: we went to the back of Coire Cas to do a revision of ice axe arrests, kicking steps and we also learnt about cutting steps and avalanche analysis (the Rutschblock test). We then went up onto the plateau via the Fiacaill a’ Choire Chais before descending the Coire Cas headwall to learn about simple belay techniques (Stomper belay, Boot axe belay and bucket seat with buried axe). The wind was up on Sunday and at times the gusts nearly took us off our feet, which took a bit of getting used too. It was at this time we learnt that we needed to invest in decent walking poles, both Alison’s and mine packed up part way through the day and that didn’t help when we were battling to stay upright.

After having taken part in this training weekend I think the debate about whether the club provides instruction to newer members and the liability concerns attached to that warrants further consideration. It’s great that there are lots of new members and the club needs these new members to keep going. The difficulty is that the current set up means when newer members are welcomed on to weekend meets the leader is put in a position of providing informal instruction to enable them to participate. This in itself can be risky if they don’t really know the individual’s level of experience/inexperience.

The question could be asked ‘Can the good will of those members that do offer their time and support actually cope with the volume of new member’s?’ The days of people building up their experience in/out doors with a relative or friend before joining the club have been surpassed by the accessibility of indoor walls. Many people now come to the club, as we did, having done three sessions at Sunderland Wall, this gave us an appreciation of the basics (ie tying on and belay techniques) but not a full awareness of all the risks involved.