Meeting the BMG prerequisites – thoughts and tips

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 Misha 29 Jul 2018

This topic comes up in the forums every so often. Having been accepted onto the induction phase of the BMG training scheme, I thought it would be helpful to share a few thoughts and tips on getting through the process of gaining the prerequisites.

These are just my own thoughts based on personal experience of working through the prerequisites. Everyone’s experience and background will be different, so if you’re thinking about the scheme and want some specific feedback, I suggest getting in touch with the BMG. The Technical Director who is in charge of the scheme, Adrian Nelhams, is really helpful.

It’s not for me to say whether this or that route or ski tour meets this or that requirement – that’s a question for the BMG training committee. However I’ve included some general comments which hopefully will be helpful. I’ve also included some fairly dull but important practical tips on the actual application process.

This is a long post so get a cup of tea!

Meeting the prerequisites

1. First of all, identify the gaps in your experience. The best way to do that is to get the application form template from the BMG website, review the various prerequisites and fill it in with your experience to date. The gaps should then be fairly obvious. You might already have a pretty good idea of the gaps but it’s not until you set it out on the application form that you actually see exactly how many and what kind of routes / ski tours you still need to do to meet the minimum requirements.

The other benefit of filling in the form at an early stage is that it will save you a lot of time later. It’s much easier to add to the form on a regular basis than to do it all from scratch against a looming application deadline. Even if you have a comprehensive UKC logbook, starting from scratch won’t take hours – it will take days. The application form requires a lot of detail, especially for the Alpine routes and ski tours. I found it quite an enjoyable process of hunting around on UK and in guide books for various missing details but it does eat up time!

2. I think it’s fair to say that the BMG look for a broad variety of experience in each discipline, i.e. different types of routes in different areas. Don’t just do all your rock climbing in North Wales and all your winter climbing in the Northern Corries. In the application form it’s a good idea to organise your list of routes for each type of climbing by climbing area as that would show the geographic areas where you lack experience. Being a Hard Rock, Extreme Rock, Cold Climbs and Chasing the Ephemeral ‘puerile ticker’ is pretty useful for getting you out and about!

3. This is the “British Mountain” Guide scheme - it requires a reasonable amount of experience in the British mountains in both summer and winter. I’ve heard of people who lived in Cham and had done a fair bit of ski touring and Alpine stuff but lacked British summer and/or winter experience so were asked to do more multi pitch E1s and/or Scottish Vs. Yet this is also the British “Mountain Guide” scheme, so you also need to have solid Alpine climbing and ski touring experience. Again, make sure it’s in a variety of areas – don’t just climb and ski in Cham, there’s loads to do in Switzerland, Italy and the Ecrins. Being familiar with a wide range of areas and crags would help both with the prerequisites and with going through the scheme itself.

I think the need for broad experience covering both Britain and the Alps is actually the crux of gaining the prerequisites. If you live in Britain or Ireland, it’s not that hard to get the summer and winter experience over a few years but the ski touring and big alpine routes will take many years, unless you spend a few seasons in the Alps. Whereas if you live in the Alps, it’s hard to get the British summer and rock experience, unless you spend some seasons back home. Even then, you might get unlucky with the weather and end up having an unproductive season…

4. The five big TDs are the crux for the Alpine prerequisites as you need the right combination of weather, conditions, acclimatisation and partner. These TDs need to include a few mixed or semi mixed routes as opposed to just pure rock routes and it’s getting increasingly difficult to find mixed routes in decent condition. There’s a lot of discussion around what does or doesn’t ‘count’ as a big TD or a big mixed TD and different people will give you different answers. I would suggest speaking with an experienced guide or the BMG Technical Director if you want specific guidance.

5. If you are a weekend warrior, don’t despair. It should still be possible to gain the prerequisites, as long as you spend most of your weekends and all of your holidays climbing – it will just take a fair few years. I’ve been climbing for 15 years but have only seriously considered going for the BMG scheme over the last 5 years or so. By that point I already had a pretty good trad log book and a decent base for Scottish winter, alpine and ski touring but still had a fair way to go. I’ve managed to meet the prerequisites by being a typical weekend warrior, climbing most weekends when the weather and the conditions allowed and spending 5 or 6 weeks a year on climbing trips, mostly in the Alps. I also took an extra month off work one year which I spent in the Alps but didn’t actually get that much done due to the weather!

6. Enjoy the process! If you don’t, you probably won’t get there. Don’t just climb (or ski) for the log book ticks, climb because you enjoy doing it. If you don’t enjoy Scottish winter climbing or big alpine routes (at least in in retrospect!), you won’t enjoy going through the scheme and working as a guide.

Over the last few years, I’ve been actively working towards filling the gaps in my experience but it’s all been stuff that I’ve wanted to do anyway – long Scottish winter routes in the North West, Alpine north faces, classic ski tours and so on. Working towards the prerequisites simply added focus and impetus but it didn’t push me to do anything I didn’t want to do. If you end up doing stuff you don’t enjoy, climbing just for the log book, you’ve got to ask yourself whether your heart is really in it.

7. Don’t let the log book chase get you into dodgy situations on out of condition routes. After all, part of being an experienced mountaineer is knowing when to say no. I’ve pulled out of plenty of Scottish winter weekends when the weather, climbing or avalanche conditions meant that it wouldn’t be sensible to go out. Living in Birmingham, it’s actually pretty easy to bail on a Scottish weekend trip as it saves you on a knackering drive! What’s harder is saying no in the Alps, when you only have a few weeks and you really need do another couple of big TDs… but sometimes (all too often!) the weather and the conditions will dictate spending yet another couple of days in the valley.

It’s a good idea to set yourself a target timeframe for gaining the prerequisites but make sure it’s realistic. If the timeframe is too ambitious, you’ll be more likely to push on in situations when you shouldn’t. You don’t want to end up half way up an out of condition route on the Grandes Jorasses with a storm rolling in, just because you want to apply next year (or for any other reason!).

8. You will need some solid partners who are psyched to do similar stuff, particularly for the bigger Scottish winter and alpine routes. There’s no magic answer here but you do tend to meet people over the years.

9. It’s a good idea to have a grade or two in hand for the technical requirements. E1 and winter V isn’t that big a deal these days but you do need to be absolutely solid at these grades, including in less than ideal conditions, so personally I’d recommend solid experience at E2 5c and VI 7. You don’t want to be wobbling on your induction or assessment tests! The winter induction and assessment tests may well be in Sneachda or Lochain and we all know what the V 6s there are like in less than ideal conditions! You certainly don’t need to be cranking out E5s and Scottish VIIIs (though it doesn’t hurt if you are!) but having a grade or two in hand in a good idea.

10. The prerequisites are minimum requirements. Chances are that you will have more experience in some areas than others, probably depending on where you’re based. It’s a good idea to have loads more experience in some areas to compensate for less extensive experience in other areas. My summer rock was very strong, Scottish winter was strong, ski touring was in excess of the minimum requirements and alpine was ‘good enough’ (not for lack of trying – it’s been pretty hard to find big mixed routes in condition in recent years…). You can get an idea of what I’ve done from my UKC logbook – it’s fairly complete from 2007 onwards but doesn’t have some of the classic PDs and ADs which I did early on in my Alpine apprenticeship and of course doesn’t have the ski touring.

11. I would recommend getting in touch with the BMG Technical Director, Adrian Nelhams, who is in charge of the training scheme, well before you apply. He is very helpful and should be able to give you some feedback on your draft application (another reason to start filling in the application at an early stage). I got in touch with Adrian just over a year before applying and he gave me some pointers on what to focus on to round out my experience.

 

OP Misha 29 Jul 2018

The application process

1. My main tip is don’t leave the ‘paperwork’ requirements until the last moment because it can easily take a couple of months to get this sorted.

2. Valid first aid certificate with a mountaineering component. Unless you already have this, you’ll need to book onto a suitable two day course. There are quite a few providers out there but not so many in some parts of the country and some of them get booked up weeks or even months in advance. Make sure the course meets the ‘mountaineering’ requirement – usually the providers will state in the course description that it’s suitable for MIA, MIC and BMG.

3. Medical form. Experience with this seems to vary depending on your GP! A friend of mine simply booked a GP appointment but had to persuade the GP to sign off on the form as the GP said my friend was clearly healthy so didn’t need to be certified as such! Whereas my GP surgery said I needed to leave the form with their medical secretary to pass onto the GP, who would then fill it in for me to pick up later. That didn’t sound too complicated but then the medical secretary was off sick, which delayed the whole process by a couple of weeks so I was glad I didn’t leave this till the last moment.

4. You need a personal referee and a BMG referee who would act as your mentor on the scheme. If you don’t know a qualified IFMGA guide who is prepared to act as a mentor, make sure you get in touch with the Training Director well in advance so that a suitable mentor could be suggested and you would then have time to get to know them. I didn’t really know any guides but when I got in touch with Adrian, he was happy to suggest a mentor for me. I think it’s a good idea if your personal referee is a long standing climbing partner who can confirm at least some of your logbook, as well as attest to your general good character etc.

5. Unless you’re still working through a few remaining prerequisites, don’t leave submitting the application until just before the 31 May deadline – for your own peace of mind, send it in a couple of weeks early, or at least plan to do that and then you’ll actually get it in on time after dealing with various last minute glitches like the printer not working! There are a few things you need to submit alongside the application, like the medical form, first aid certificate, photo and application fee cheque. Bear in mind that you need to send some of this by post as well as emailing copies. This is all explained in the guidance notes for applicants on the BMG website.

6. Save up some money (and then some more) because going through the scheme will not be cheap. As far as I can tell, the various courses and assessments currently cost around £10k - £11k if you pass everything first time (travel, accommodation and lift passes etc are on top of that).

The other big cost is not being able to work for large parts of the year (unless you’re already an ML / WML / MIA / MIC) as preparing for the assessments is a fairly full time commitment. You’d be looking at spending May/June through to September preparing for the summer rock assessment and then December/January through to March preparing for the Scottish winter assessment. There will be travel and accommodation costs associated with that (unless you’re really hard and don’t mind living in a van through the Scottish winter) – all this on potentially zero income.

As far as I can tell, you can do a reasonable amount of paid work once you’re an Aspirant (which is after passing the Scottish winter assessment and doing the ski touring and alpine training) but you need to fund that first year (or two years if you fail as assessment…).

Other sources of information

Tom Ripley, who is currently on the BMG training scheme, wrote a blog post with his thoughts on meeting the prerequisites. Well worth a read http://tomripleyclimbing.blogspot.com/2016/10/completing-british-mountain-g...

There have been a few UKC threads on this subject over the years. Some are more useful than others.

As mentioned above, Adrian Nelhams is really helpful and I would recommend getting in touch with him if you’re seriously thinking about the scheme (it’s helpful if you complete the draft application form first so he could give you specific feedback).

Finally, speak with any guides, aspirants or trainees you happen to know or come across – I’m sure most people would be happy to share a few thoughts.

Hope this is useful. Good luck!

 

 MischaHY 30 Jul 2018
In reply to Misha:

Great post. Got me thinking again... 

 Ramon Marin 30 Jul 2018
In reply to Misha:

my gosh I think this post has put me off being a guide, so convoluted!, not that I was considering it tho Good luck Misha, I hope you get fly thru the process

2
OP Misha 30 Jul 2018
In reply to Ramon Marin:

Convoluted, do you mean my post or the prerequisites   I'm a man of many (written) words as you know! As for the process, it's quite simple really - go climbing and skiing lots, with an eye on what you still need to do. May be I should have just put that!

In reply to Misha:

Great Post Misha. Another classic long read . Worthy of a short article that one!

Read it purely out of interest, I'm not cut out to be a guide, I know that all too well! Usually after 2 days on Scottish winter or a week trad climbing I'm absolutely done in and wanting to get back home for a nice coffee and sit on the couch!

The thought of doing multiple days, mainly in winter, I'd fine very mentally taxing. I remember actually getting out on bed at 4am once for a winter day with a mate. I'd stupidly committed to that day after doing a massive day before. I was almost in tears with my feet hanging off the bed. It took me about 5 minutes to actually stand up and get going. I don't know how guides do it! 

 John Lyall 01 Aug 2018
In reply to Misha:

Lots of good advice there, so well done.

I would say that even if you have an MIC, you will still want to commit a lot of time to the scheme.

Have lots of fun doing the training.

John

OP Misha 01 Aug 2018
In reply to Martin McKenna - Rockfax:

An article is on the way in fact.

You make a good point. I suspect in practice it’s rare for guides to do consecutive massive days is Scotland or indeed in the Alps. Some of the work involves relatively easy routes and even more technical or longer routes can often be done in a relatively short day by personal climbing standards (I’d say anything less than 10 hours is short and 12 is normal!)  

Going out in poor weather can’t be much fun though. The kind of weather which is bad but not so bad as to be unsafe, so you still go out...

Of course a lot of guides don’t really do Scottish winter or at least not for the whole season.

1
 robertmichaellovell Global Crag Moderator 01 Aug 2018
In reply to Martin McKenna - Rockfax:

> Usually after 2 days on Scottish winter or a week trad climbing I'm absolutely done in and wanting to get back home for a nice coffee and sit on the couch!

You didn't tell me that before I asked you on a 10 day islands trip... lucky we didn't get to do any climbing then really!

 


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