The Hillwalker’s Guide to Mountaineering - Essential Skills

• Description
• Contents
• Introduction
• Sample Route
• Reviews
• Further Reading

Part One - From Hillwalking to Mountaineering

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When is a walk not a walk?
There was a time when climbing meant climbing, and hillwalking meant walking, and everyone knew where they stood in the mountains – either on steep ground, or off it. But as walking, climbing, and outdoor activities generally have grown in popularity, something significant has changed – the meaning of ‘walk’. The dictionary definition may charmingly recall the days when it meant putting one foot in front of the other. But much of what you’ll find on the ‘climbing and walking’ shelves of your local shop – or in any month’s offering from the UK’s outdoor press – suggests something more.

So, to which ‘walks’ does the modern hillwalker aspire? Well, the easier stuff includes, say, the slanting traverse of Jack’s Rake across the sheer face of Pavey Ark in Langdale – a grade 1 scramble, once classed as an ‘Easy’ rock climb. Few writers will suggest you need a rope or advanced climbing skills on this ground. On the other hand, few walkers will feel totally at their ease here. Which is not to say they don’t enjoy it – on the contrary, they love it!

Other routes that have a habit of popping up in ‘best walks’ books are more serious still. Curved Ridge, for instance, on Buachaille Etive Mor, offers technical and demanding ground for anyone but an accomplished rock-jock. And just down the road in Glen Coe the Aonach Eagach lures you in like a slumbering dragon with miles of tricky scrambling along its spiny dorsal, lots of exposure, big drops and a long way from help. If this is walking, why aren’t you up there with your grandmother on a Sunday afternoon?

These and other similarly challenging routes are the objectives that today’s ambitious hillwalkers aspire to in their thousands. But are they really ‘walks’? The term ‘scrambling’ is used of course, but even this – particularly to the less experienced mountain-goer – can sometimes seem like a slightly cosy description that glosses over the true seriousness of the situation. The vagaries of grading this semi-technical ground are not always very helpful either. Learning what scrambling grades mean by experience is all very well – as long as you survive the experience.

The fact is that to be negotiated confidently, enjoyably and – most important of all – safely, mountain journeys such as these demand a combination of skills and equipment that are essential to safe travel in the hills when a variety of ground, including steep terrain, is to be negotiated. In other words, the ambitions of the hillwalker require the skills of the mountaineer.

The aim of this book is to teach and illustrate this essential mountaineering skill-set, and to describe a selection of classic British mountaineering routes where the techniques and equipment involved can, with time and the right approach, be successfully applied in summer conditions.

Winter Mountaineering
This is a much bigger subject and, under full winter conditions, any of the routes covered will require a much higher level of technical climbing ability than lies within the scope of this book. Nevertheless, it’s odds-on that most hillwalkers who will enjoy the challenges discussed will want a piece of the winter mountains too, and so we include a chapter on essential winter walking skills.

This book is not a comprehensive  manual; on the contrary, it is intended to keep things short, practical and to the point. The skills you will find here are taught with a view to tackling some of Britain’s classic mountaineering terrain, and in describing sections of routes where they can be applied we have paid most attention to the climbing or technical passages, as these are the sections where the challenge to the budding mountaineer is most keenly focused.

Overall, the skills taught are intended to be an economical selection of practical and relatively easy-to-acquire techniques that can be directly applied. Inevitably, these include ‘single-pitch’ climbing skills, but in our opinion most ambitious hillwalkers aspire to be – in fact, by definition, are – mountaineers, rather than rock climbers. They aspire not so much to a day at a roadside crag or a full-on encounter with a massive rock wall, as to committing and rewarding mountain journeys that combine mountaineering skills such as scrambling, bivouacking, navigation and ropework. We hope this book will help some of their aspirations to be met.

Where do you start?
The most popular ‘walks’ in Britain involve one, or a number of, classic ‘crux’ challenges, that teeter on the brink of being too scary, exposed or technical for many of the people who attempt them. Most who do, however, somehow manage to drag themselves up, over or along them. These are typically grade 1 scrambles in very popular areas – routes like Striding Edge, Sharp Edge or the aforementioned Jack’s Rake in the Lake District, or Crib Goch, Bristly Ridge and Tryfan North Ridge in Snowdonia. The relatively low accident rates on these routes sometimes belie the trepidation they engender in the large number of marginally experienced hill-goers who undertake them each year. It also suggests that most wait, sensibly, for good conditions – in the wet or wind they are all a distinctly more challenging proposition. But the point is that most people manage them, usually rope-free, enjoy them – and want more! More routes, more challenges and more mountaineering experiences.

If you recognise yourself in all this it’s hardly surprising. Most fit and active hillwalkers can enjoy a grade 1 scramble, albeit aspects of the experience may give them cause to recall Noel Williams’ bleak warning that ‘unroped scrambling in exposed situations is potentially the most dangerous of all mountaineering activities’ (see Further Reading). Even if they’ve never heard those words, the thought has probably occurred to them. It’s hard to deny that the element of ‘frisson’ is – if only retrospectively on some occasions – part of the fun.

Beyond the level of grade 1 scrambling, things quickly get much more serious, and it is on mountaineering routes involving such sections – whether on the Cuillin Ridge or St Sunday Crag in the Lakes – that many people find either they are at (or beyond) the limit of their current abilities, or that they are taking unacceptable risks. This is when they, or perhaps a member of their party, need to master a new set of skills and techniques to fulfil their aspirations, and this is the skill-set described in this book.

The selection of classic routes that we go on to describe here vary enormously in degree of difficulty and seriousness – for many Tower Ridge on Ben Nevis, for instance, will be a distant goal of which they can, as yet, only dream. Nevertheless, the specialist skills of the mountaineer can start to be applied at a much lower level than this. We have largely concentrated on routes that involve terrain where the crux is categorised at grade 2 and above, the one possible exception being a direct ascent of Tryfan’s famous North Ridge. Of course in less than perfect conditions, climbing-related skills are likely to be called for on many British grade 1 scrambling routes. In any case, it should not be forgotten that successfully negotiating the mountaineering journeys featured here involves much more than merely overcoming the technical sections.