Mountain Leader Summer Award Updates

Mountain Training has officially announced the revised updates to the Mountain Leader Summer Award.

Many months of discussion have resulted in some important changes to the Mountain Leader Award. These changes are part of a wholesale review of the all the walking awards as we approach the 50th anniversary of the Mountain Leader scheme. 

The following updates to the ML Summer Training and Assessment have been agreed and are now in place:

• The training and assessment of the use of a rope in the water hazards (river crossing) section of the syllabus will be discontinued. ) 
• The guidance on training and assessment of the use of the rope on steep ground has also been modified. Mountain Training feels that the emphasis needs to be on 'real life' steep ground situations rather than the potential 'lowering' of participants down vertical crags. 
• There is acknowledgement of the role that site/organisation specific training and management can have in determining the operational remit of any award holder.

To clarify it will:

• Not be expecting candidates to be trained or assessed in the use of the rope in river crossings. 
• Be expecting that the use of the rope on steep ground reflects common practice - i.e. 'safeguarding' rather than 'lowering' - in both training and assessment and that complicated rope harnesses will NOT be required.

These changes have been revised in the ML Handbook which is available on the MT website.

With what many will see as a simplification of the rope work all future training courses from 1st October can be delivered at the Providers/Course Directors discretion at a ratio of 1:6 instead of the normal 1:4 as it has been in the past. This does not change the requirement to have a second member of staff on both training and assessment courses as we believe it is important that all candidates are able to observe different teaching methods and course delivery.