Your Stories - Martin Longmuir

Every Sunday we're featuring someone with a Mountain Training story to tell.

This week: Martin Longmuir

My first experience of the hills was back in the summer of 1995. A trip to Loch Muick was to spark the beginning of a lifetime in the hills. I was there with some friends to take a walk round the loch but a change of mind and an urge to go wandering led me and my pal Steve to the summit of Lochanagar. From then on I started to look into the hills and countryside of Scotland with a little more detail and attention.

The following summer I was on an adventure training camp with the Army Cadets and we had a trip to the summit of Ben Lawers. Dave Adams the mountain leader on that walk became my biggest inspiration for hillwalking and started my conquest to ‘bag Munro’s’. I also decided then that I would love the opportunity to become a mountain leader.

Since then I have completed all but 2 of the Munro’s. I’ve spent a lot of time climbing in the corries and even pushing my boundaries to cycling my way through the Munro tables. In 2000 I complete a mountain leader training course in the Lakes. My intention had always been to complete the award and blast out my single pitch award but life being the way it is I have gotten a little side tracked along the way.

I currently work as a rope access supervisor and I am a keen photographer so it's always interesting to take some of the ideas from work to climbing and vice versa and I believe that both have made me much more efficient and confident not only in my professional life but also in sport.

I now have a regular hillwalking partner, another Steve who is fresh and new to the sport so it has rekindled my spark and desire to lead in the hills. With that spark I am now looking at completing the award and moving on in my mountaineering.