Since its introduction in 1965, the Winter Mountain Leader scheme has achieved recognition across the UK and the Republic of Ireland as the qualification for leading others and providing basic skills instruction to parties on mountainous country under winter conditions. The scheme is operated on behalf of Mountain Training by Mountain Training Scotland, whose approved providers run all the training and assessment courses in Scotland, although the qualification is valid throughout the UK and Ireland.

Mountain Training has recently concluded a three-year review of the walking qualifications in collaboration with key partners and stakeholders. As with all scheme reviews, the aim was to identify whether the qualifications continue to be fit for purpose and meet the needs of the end users. The outcomes and recommendations of this review can be found here: Walking schemes review - syllabus amends

Following on from that walking schemes review, Mountain Training Scotland (MTS) has completed its review of the Winter Mountain Leader scheme where the intent was primarily to align the ‘scheme pathway’ headings and associated competencies with the new revised Mountain Leader scheme.

Since the interim Winter Mountain Leader review in 2016, there have been several key changes:

• The use of the Be Avalanche Aware (BAA) process is now firmly accepted and embedded within the Winter Mountain Leader scheme.
• Variable weather and conditions often impact on course programmes, especially the expedition phase where snow holes have been used. Since 2019 (excluding 2021), only 30% -36% of courses that ran managed to snow hole overnight. As a result, our course directors have sought different strategies to ensure training and assessment courses remain viable, relevant and authentic to the scheme. Throughout the review, consideration has been given to ensuring the scheme remained resilient in coping with unreliable environmental factors.

The following is a summary of amendments to the Winter Mountain Leader scheme (it should be stressed that none of the changes summarised below have changed the overall scope or standard of the scheme):

Scheme information

Preface

• This has been aligned with the Mountain Leader preface and tweaked to encompass Winter Mountain Leader.

Scope of the scheme

• Added a definition of winter terrain (based on that used for the Mountain Leader).
• Experience requirements – the Winter Mountain Leader is an application process and candidates must meet a defined set of experience prerequisites. Candidates frequently submit requests to MTS to review their DLOGs when they have far fewer than the minimum 20 Quality Winter Days. This leads to delays reviewing applications, as these applications have to be assessed in detail and feedback returned.
  
  The previous scheme application wording stated:
  
  “Registration for the Winter Mountain Leader scheme is an application process, and you need to meet the following prerequisites”
  
  This has been changed to:
  
  “Registration for the Winter Mountain Leader scheme is an application process, and you must meet the following prerequisites”
  
  Please note the experience prerequisites have not changed.
• With regard Winter Quality Mountain days for registration, we have tightened up on the wording which now reads: “All the following criteria should be fulfilled.”

Staffing

• We have removed the requirement for 1:4 ratio on Winter Mountain Leader training – this brings it in line with the Mountain Leader where the ratio is 1:6 throughout.
• Minimum course size is now in line with all the other Mountain Training schemes including Mountain Leader. This should make it easier for a/ providers to run a course and b/ candidates to be reassured that courses are more likely to go ahead (though please note the course provider will still decide if a course is financially viable to run).

Syllabus

• The Winter Mountain Leader scheme pathway and related syllabus competencies have been realigned with the Mountain Leader scheme where appropriate. Where required, competencies have been winterised.
• We have added the new Mountain Training leadership and decision-making competencies. MTS has created an online learning resource for the leadership and decision making competencies based on the Mountain Training ‘Vison; Support; Challenge’ model which can be accessed at https://mountain-training-scotland.teachable.com. It’s free and can be accessed from this link by either signing up, logging in OR just clicking ‘all courses’.
• The old Winter Mountain Leader syllabus sections ‘Snow and Avalanches’ and, ‘Winter Weather’ have been rolled into a revised section which now includes ‘Planning, Weather, Snow and Avalanches’ all structured around the Be Avalanche Aware process. There is a ‘Be Avalanche Aware’ eLearning course to introduce you to this important decision-making tool for all winter mountain users, created by the Snow and Avalanche Foundation of Scotland. Candidates can register for this e-learning resource at the following link: https://be-avalanche-aware.teachable.com/p/be-avalanche-aware NOTE: if someone already has a teachable account, e.g. with the MTS school or indeed any other school hosted on Teachable.com they will need to create a new account with the BAA School.
• Added the new ‘Teaching and learning skills’ competencies.
• Snow holing – here we have tweaked the emphasis to ‘emergency’ i.e. “In the event of an emergency or unplanned night out, candidates should demonstrate the ability to construct and use snowholes and emergency shelters”. This is to emphasise we are only expecting Winter Mountain Leaders to create a snow shelter in an emergency – assuming of course the emergency is conveniently near a large bank of snow!

Handbook