News and articles

Members of the association will post articles that we hope members of the public and our own members will find interesting.
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AMI Safety Seminar AMI - AGM Weekend 2017 Having had my chosen workshop cancelled just a couple of days earlier it was with some reluctance I went along to the dry sounding Safety Seminar. However when I saw that the Silver Fox that is Steve Howe was presenting it I was somewhat re-assured! Steve gave us a brief outline of the current procedure for reporting incidents and the possible sanctions that could be imposed for unprofessional... 31/01/2017 11:45

Day 1 Personal Climbing Day Thought by many to be the easy day; just go out and climb a VS 4c and go home for tea and cake. It's not like that at all. I think the best way to describe the day is a guiding day with 2 competent clients - you're the guide (note the small 'g'). If the weather's bad then you'll probably be at Tremadog but you could realistically be anywhere in North Wales.. This is not the time to be flicking... 13/12/2015 21:07

Day 2 Problem Solving Location wise, I was at Tremadog but you could be in the Pass. I personally don’t know of anyone who didn’t end up at Tremadog. They try to do it all on VS terrain. It will be you, another candidate and a different assessor than from day 1.Today's the day when you want every spare screwgate you can lay your hands on. I think I had about 15 in total (5 on slings, 2 on prussic and 8... 13/12/2015 21:13

Save Outdoor Education Centres Post covid we are told to prepare for a new normal. Many Governments are looking towards a green recovery, rewarding viable jobs and businesses that are prepared for this new future. However we are in danger of losing outdoor education provisions for our young people and few would argue that this is a change for the better. Viable jobs and a valuable sector made into zombie businesses through the... 24/11/2020 10:36

Day 3 Teaching Climbing Day So we've had two technical days, now it's time for the mental challenge of Day 3; Teaching Day or Client Day. This seems to be the day that everyone fears, I certainly did. As I deferred this day, I'm in no position to pass on information about how to get through this day. I'll set out a brief detail of how the day runs from my experience, a brief explanation of how it actually ran for me and... 13/12/2015 21:15

Six Coaching Pitfalls and how to avoid them Something that I have noticed over the years of running coach and instructor assessments, is that the candidates are normally good at making plans that seem to make logical sense, but as soon as they try and implement those plans with real people, things go downhill pretty quickly. So what goes wrong? There are many ways that coaches fail to meet the needs of the clients, but generally it boils... 12/06/2019 11:54

Day 4 Mountain Day If Day 2 was a technically tiring day, Day 3 was a mentally tiring day then Day 4 is the physically tiring day. For this day it's you, a fellow candidate and 1 assessor. From people I've spoken to you do tend to be in Ogwen. We were on Tryfan, but you could easily be on Glyder Fach or Idwal. You get told in the car park which route they want you to get them to and then the assessor will expect... 13/12/2015 21:19

Telling: The Greatest climbing coaching sin of all Telling is probably the most serious mistake a climbing coach can make. It is, sadly, also one of the most common. Telling is excessive input from the coach during training sessions. In its most extreme form, it becomes a form of remote control. The coach isn’t coaching - they insist that their climbers respond immediately to their instructions. Making most or all of the decisions for... 12/06/2019 13:32

Day 5 Navigation Day This is the day where you have to swap the previous 4 days of living in the vertical for a day in the horizontal. To aid this switch over, on my assessment 5 out of the 6 of us got up at 05:00 and went and did two hours of morning navigation. This was really good as it just helped get the mind free of ropes and back into maps and contours. Our day was logistically quite simple; 1 assessor and 3... 13/12/2015 21:21

Auto-Belays: How not to muck it up My first encounter with an auto belay was at Number 1 Parachute Training School, Brize Norton as I exited a mock up of a Hercules. It was terrifying! There was a brief stomach churning moment of freefall before the device took action and I still remember it to this day. Auto belays are pretty common in climbing walls and also frequently seen on mobile climbing towers. This isn’t a... 13/06/2019 10:27

Protecting the first steps into Leading: Ghost Roping Like many of us I am frequently called on to teach trad leading in a single pitch environment such as the Peak District. Good movement skills, efficient gear placement are the foundations of the safety chain when teaching leading. As such, at single pitch venues, I have found using a bottom rope as a ‘ghost rope’ to be a useful and effective method of developing novice leader’s... 25/06/2019 15:22

Are you ready for a winter mountain day “Plan for what is difficult while it is easy, do what is great while it is small” Sun Tzo -The Art of War The first snows of winter are already upon us, below is what goes through a Winter Mountaineering and Climbing Instructors mind as they look to plan a winter trip. The stakes are a lot higher in winter so whether you are going for a walk, mountaineering along a ridge or hoping to... 23/10/2019 13:33

Review: Edelrid Ohm The Edlerid Ohm is an assisted-braking resistor, retailing at around £100, that you install at the first bolt in the belay chain’ basically you clip it on the rope end of your first quickdraw with rope running in an indicated direction. Should the leader fall, this applies some friction at first bolt level, before it gets to the belay device and belayer. This sums up a time when it... 23/06/2017 11:13

AMI Autumn Conference - Working with adults and youth groups AMI will be running a weekend of specialist workshops, development and discussion opportunities for members involved in managing adult and/or youth group work in the mountains or on rock. The conference is to be hosted at Thornbridge Outdoor Centre in the Peak District. All the workshops count as full CPD for AMI and, where appropriate, will count for MTA, BAIML, and British Canoeing. This is a... 20/07/2017 17:07

Disability Awareness workshop Ten AMI members recently met up for a disability awareness workshop at the Lake District Calvert Trust. The centre is based below Skiddaw, looking over Bassenthwaite Lake not far from Keswick. It was set up as a charity to specifically provide activities for people with disabilities. Their climbing wall was inspired by the local single-pitch venue of Head End Quarry near Sandale and was built by... 22/11/2016 19:44

AMI AGM 2017 The AMI AGM is filling up fast, this is a great weekend and opportunity to find out the latest news and developments happening in your Association. Taking place at Glenmore Lodge on Saturday 14th and Sunday 15th January , get your year off to a great start with a chance to, get up to date with your CPD with a great choice of workshops from Winter stance management and short roping to decision... 04/01/2017 16:48

SEA CLIFF CLIMBING SKILLS Most people do not start out sea cliff climbing. For the majority, their introduction to climbing comes in the form of visits to a local indoor wall, before venturing out onto single pitch crags such as Stanage, where you can park your car, saunter the 5 minutes up to the crag (with full view of it at all time), peruse the guide book, do a route and casually wander round back to the bottom. Your... 18/11/2016 20:11

The North face of Triglav AMI member Dave Talbot has written about his ascent of the North Face of Triglav... I first saw the north face of Triglav in a book, 'The Big Walls' by Reinhold Messner, when I was about 19 years old. The mountain and the face has fascinated me ever since. In the book, it gave an account of the first ascent with a large colour photo of the mighty north face of Triglav. It quoted “Few... 30/06/2016 15:45

Building a Trad Climbing Rack Everyone has their own personal preferences when it comes to kit, what items, what brand, how many, what colour... Therefore, I must say, before you go out and spend hundreds on a rack, climb with as many other peoples' gear as possible first so you can decide what you prefer using! This rack and information is based on my own gear and for every person who agrees with what I've listed, I can... 02/09/2016 12:34

Meet an AMI Member Part 4 In our fourth and final (for now!) meet a member, we hear from Kristine Cruse about her life as a Mountaineering Instructor. My climbing instructional career began in West View Leisure Centre, when I was a student at UCLAN. The wall was much smaller than it is now, and the only way to get ropes up was to solo. Needless to say ropes didn't get put up often. After university I began to work at an... 18/05/2016 17:29

Meet an AMI Member Part 3 Sitting here, and looking out the window on a grey, wet day in Fort William, it’s sometimes all too easy to forget what a brilliant winter we’ve just had, and looking at the mid-range forecasts, a winter that is set to continue for a while yet. Having now just finished working my sixth winter season, five of those as a full MIC, I can honestly say that my passion for Scottish Winter... 26/04/2016 18:29

Meet an AMI Member part 2 Meet an AMI member has two members telling their story this time. Paul Roberts and Stuart McInnes are both active Mountaineering Instructors who absolutely love climbing. Here's what they have to say... Font, Photo by Mikey Cleverdon Working as an MIA can be very diverse. We all know the standard employment opportunities such as using the qualification to progress within the industry, run... 22/03/2016 19:07

Meet an AMI Member Part 1 In the first part of Meet a Member, we have Cliff Lowther writing a piece about his path into being a professional Mountaineering Instructor. There'll be more of these coming up to show what a wide variety of roles our members have in the outdoor world, from working at outdoor centres to industrial rope access and everything in between. Having realised at an early age that my dream of... 26/02/2016 16:20

Guidance on engaging professional mountaineering services Whatever your target, a mountain leader, mountain instructor or mountain guide can help you to achieve your goals, support the development of your skills, expand your experience, and provide valuable feedback about your training needs. However, choosing someone to put your trust in, to undertake potentially hazardous activities in potentially hazardous environments, can be a challenge in its own... 16/12/2015 09:59

MIA Assessment at PYB As it is now Assessment season I thought I'd drag out a few articles I wrote about what to expect on Assessment. I did mine a couple years ago but fell at the fence and got a deferral. I’ve now passed so thought I’d pass on a how the days ran for me and what to expect.It became apparent that a few people I had spoken to over the next couple of years really didn't know what to expect... 13/12/2015 20:55

When is a big wall not a big wall Big wall climbing is a type of rock climbing where a climber ascends a long-pitch route, normally requiring more than a single day to complete the climb. Big wall routes require the climbing team to live on the route often using portaledges and hauling equipment. It is practiced on tall or more vertical faces with few ledges and small cracks. So no time or length restrictions. Bearing in mind... 16/12/2015 09:49