AMI Trainee Workshop

This weekend I have been working for AMI directing an open workshop for trainees working towards assessment. It's been a busy weekend with a full course of 6 students. I've really enjoyed working this course. Doing the job of a Mountaineering Instructor is an enjoyable fantastic challenge; structuring courses, choosing systems to work with and solving problems etc. But explaining to other people how to do that job; exactly what you do and, perhaps more importantly, why you do it that way is in many ways even more rewarding. It is certainly more challenging and at the end of the two days I feel fairly wrung out- like I've been drained of information .

On saturday we were blessed with fine weather and in response to requests from the team it was to be a day focussed on the 'dark art' of shortoping. We went to Lagangarbh Buttress on Buachaille Etive Mor. I chose this venue because whilst it gives good scrambling ground there are few obvious belays and the it presents a wide range of challenges when it comes to making judgements about how to protect people in ascent and descent. i can recommend this route and its neighbours (Broad and Great Gully Buttresses) as a change from the ever popular Curved Ridge and North Buttress if you are a confident rope-less Grade 2 Scrambler with good routefinding skills.

Its sunday night now and I'm at Glenmore Lodge where I'm observing an MIA Assessment for the next 5 days.