UKC

What do you think, do I really need the qualification or is my experience enough?

Context:

I'm from Scotland originally, now live near the Peak District. I've been walking since uni and now 10 years later find myself taking my group of friends into the hills fairly regularly. We had our share of sketchy situations but my experience in the reserves and on the hills usually got us through to the other side unscathed. Plus, I did most of the ML training in the reserves anyway. I'd like to think I know the risks and can (and have!) make good judgement calls when needed. We climbed munros, and did multi-day wild hiking expeditions at home and abroad. I feel extremely at home in the wild in most situations.

Recently I've been thinking about getting the qualification because even though I'm confident in the wilderness I always have this niggling thought, "what is it I don't know? Would I make a different call if I had the training? We've been lucky these last 10 years and nothing bad happened, will I know what to do if something serious happens? I don't want the responsibility of letting something serious happen to someone just because I didn't have the right training", and so on.

The career prospects don't attract me but I want to have the knowledge and the training know exactly what to do in any given situation. On the other hand, I'm starting to think that my skills are enough for our small group of friends and spending that kind of cash on a piece of paper and a bit of extra confidence on the hills is potentially not worth it.

Thoughts, advice, personal anecdotes, all very appreciated.

You don’t need quals for personal hill walking.
There is never an exact answer to any given situation, just a judgement call.

Save the cash and do more of what you enjoy, or try something that will give you ancillary experience and a different perspective of being out on the hills; for example fell running / mountain marathons.

You could just do the training course and not bother with the assessment if you just want a confidence boost.

Along similar lines you and your friends could hire an instructor for a day or two to achieve a similar outcome without spending a whole week on the course?

Are there any specific areas you feel like you need to learn more about? Ropework, nav, group management etc...?

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Personally (and without knowing you) I think you will be fine without it if you're not going to go into the 'industry'. Most punters in the hills wouldn't even think about doing it (or even know there is such a thing) before heading up Scafell Pike in their trainers with a snickers bar. The fact you're even considering it shows you've got a sensible head on you.

I did the training and found it to just reinforce all the things I already knew from growing up and doing lots of trips to the mountains, all apart from some old fashioned rope techniques. These things you'd realistically never use if you're out with friends (i.e. short roping a client). If you want to get a bit more knowledge about which cooker to use, why some tents are better than others then go for it, but I think the main learning point for me was the micro-nav and how accurate to be, rather than just saying "yeah I'm on this ridge". So if your navigation/map reading needs some polishing up then perhaps that might be a good reason to sign up. You could even speak to a ML provider and find out gaps in your knowledge to run a shorter 1:1 day, or couple of days?

Ultimately its up to you, but you sound like you've got a good foundation of knowledge to keep yourself and your friends safe.

ML provider biased post incoming 😂

Even though I am a provider it doesn't particularly sound like you need to do the course.

The syllabus is on the Mountain Training site, along with a skills checklist so that could give you an idea of any areas you're not so strong on.

On the flip side it is a good value course. My trainings cost £395 for a six day course. If you did want to do a course of some flavour the training may be a good option, without necessarily going for assessment.

For reference I charge £275 per day for most other stuff.

I think it's pretty common that a more experienced person within a group will end up as the de-facto leader / trainer of others and I think it's good, if you're in that situation, that you're as well skilled as you can be.  Experience counts for a lot but it isn't always a great teacher and there are things you're very unlikely to learn by just being out in the hills.

I was once in a similar position to you and decided I'd do a course or two and see where it led.  I've ended up working in the outdoor industry for some of my time but, even if you don't do that, the learning journey of working through the qualifications has been really enjoyable and it added direction to my personal days in the outdoors.  Doing training courses is one thing but it's when you have to prepare for an assessment that you really have to sharpen up and I think that really helps when you're trying to pass on good practice to others.

As well as helping you know what to do if things go wrong, improving your skills and decision-making means that's less likely in the first place.  That's where the real value lies, in my view.

I did the training with no intention of going on to do the assessment - I was just doing the training for personal development. I did go on and do the assessment in the end and have now through casual work covered the cost of both the training and assessment courses, and consolidated my skills really well. I'm lucky to have a secure job and don't need the qual to earn a living, but having the qualification means I can use it when and if I want. At the moment I'm working to make the mountains more accessible for a group of women Muslim hikers, it's really rewarding and a lot of fun, and it means I can help others to enjoy the outdoors as I do. I wouldn't be able to do that without the ML.

I'm not going to recommend one way or the other, you asked for stories, and my path worked out really well for me.

"We had our share of sketchy situations but my experience in the reserves and on the hills usually got us through to the other side unscathed.".  

Doing the ML may just allow you and your friends to avoid 'sketchy' situations.

Perhaps it might be a good idea and obtain a copy of the syllabus and some of the suggested reading and see if there's anything in it you don't know or are unsure about.  When I did my assessment there were two lads who claimed they were ex-army, and both claimed they had been in the.......Shhhhhhh!!  (SAS),  One failed on ropework and the other failed on navigation. The former had not got much idea about confidence roping and the latter appeared not to be able to estimate distance by pace counting.

You could of course just do the training and not the assessment.

Maybe you have been lucky but that implies that you have got away with errors of judgement as opposed to having made the correct decisions in the first place. Worth reflecting on.

It may be a good idea but think of it in terms of learning, knowledge and understanding rather than a bit of paper which is only relevant if you plan to monetise it. 

I haven't had any formal training but I do find that a bit of informal peer to peer review is good for widening one's perspective and highlighting bad habits and/or areas where one might improve. I have done mountain bike instructor training and in spite of going in certain that I knew it all I learned quite a lot. 

Personally like many here, I've never bothered with ML or any of that stuff but managed to develop skills at a rate based on personal experience. What I have done twice however is hired instructors to kick the skills up that little bit faster. I took the winter climbing week at the Glenmore years ago and what we were taught in 5 days would have took ages trawling debatable Youtube vids and days out on our own. The other instructor we hired was for sea kayaking which we found the same.

It might depend on what skills you're looking to develop. If it's skills like winter climbing and sea kayaking where the odds are taken up a great deal compared to hiking and paddling in coves then I'd say go for a few days instruction as the speed of learning and the sheer fun of it is great. Maybe talk a mate into joining you to increase the fun. It all depends where you want to take your adventures and how quickly you want to develop.

IMHO, no you don't need the qualification. However, doing the training may well broaden your experience a lot further,. add to your confidence in terms of what you do know and I think you may also learn and share a lot of new ideas and skills as well. Doing the training with an excellent provider ( like Jez ) preferably in an unfamiliar area is a great idea.

   I wanted to support my local school. So after years of personal hillwalking, scrambling, rock and alpine climbing I did the ML ( training and qualifications ) so I could volunteer and help with D of E / Ten Tors. I wasn't expecting to but actually learned a lot. One of the best things was meeting various instructors and participants who could share hints and tips way beyond the ML syllabus that actually had an impact on all my other mountain activities.

I think the other side of the equation - what is the significance of the ‘cost’ of the course(s) to you in terms of how precious your time and money is, would help answering this.  In my experience as someone who had done courses mainly for personal development, you will learn stuff and enjoy them. But whether that is enough to offset whatever else you would do with the time and money is, I reckon, the key to your question

+1

OP,

Whatever level your route planning, hazard identification, navigation etc are now they will be higher after the training course. You'll learn loads as you will be among equals, not the leader. Plus if you have sketchy moments now I'd politely suggest a training course might streamline your decision making and eliminate them altogether, giving you a more enjoyable time in the hills long term. 

Thanks everyone! The consensus seems to be that even though the qualifications are only useful if I want to work in the industry the training itself is a worthwhile exercise regardless. That’s what I will do then! Thanks for you input. It really helped me get off the fence on this 🤜🤛

Hey. Alternatively to doing the ML Training course simply as a top up exercise, you could also consider something like a Hill Skills or Mountain Skills course? These were pretty much set up exactly for what you're after.

https://www.mountain-training.org/personal-skills/hill-and-mountain-skills/...

*incidentally, I run these courses in the Peak District