An opportunity came up at the last moment to attend the first ever BMG Open Day. Seeing as the event was only 10 minutes from home at Ghyll Head OEC near Bowness, it seemed like an unmissable chance to find out more about becoming a mountain guide. It’s an idea that has interested me for quite a while – but it’s a big step; a career change, a large investment in training, etc.
The biggest disappointment was that having climbed over 100 Canadian winter routes counts for nothing against the BMG’s entry qualification of 50+ Scottish grade V winter routes. Some of these Canadian ascents, graded up to WI6 and M8+, are over 800m long and 16 hours car-to-car with a gnarly off-road drive that includes crossing frozen rivers where the guide book states that if you get into trouble “you are on your ownâ€! Doesn’t sound like nothing to me. Do these guys know how tricky it is (especially for people that work in an office Monday to Friday) to get decent weekend winter weather in Scotland these days? Global warming is real, and I feel the BMG probably have to face it if they want to get more people through their scheme. It costs a great deal to travel to Scotland, so the weather has to have some promise to justify the costs… Frankly, more reliable conditions exist at the end of a budget flight to Europe (check out this link for a Norwegian example) and so this is the modern solution to having fun in winter climbing.
Ah well, if a guides career is for me, I’d better get stuck into that misery they call Scottish winter climbing!
What I didn’t say was, amongst the many qualified guides there to promote the day, I did get to meet and climb with Graeme Ettle and Adrian Nelhams – and that wasn’t disappointing.