UKC

Hi all
New here so not sure if this is the right forum but walked in the hills for years and done some scrambling but would like advance on this and lead some small groups scrambling. Planning on taking an advanced scrambling course this year but what other qualification would I need???? Plan is over the next 18/24 months look at offering guided trips walking/scrambling

In reply to Wildtraks:

MIA (Mountaineering Instructor Award) is generally considered to be the ticket required when offering professionally guided scrambling. Quite a big ticket to obtain. Check it out online.

In reply to Wildtraks:

It's a controversial point. If by scrambling you just mean easy grade 1's with no planned use of a rope then you probably just need ML (Mountain Leader), but some would argue that anything that counts as a 'scramble', especially if you are specifically marketing it as such, would need an MIA (Mountaineering Instructors Award) which is a higher level and includes a lot of climbing.

Search for the thread on here discussing whether Crib Goch is ML territory and you'll see how opinions differ!

First starting point is ML in either case - have a look at Mountain Training's website to see what experience/training/assessment is involved.

In reply to Ron Rees Davies:

Equally if you're just taking your mates out and feel confident in doing so, then you don't *need* any quals at all. That's not to say you won't learn anything by doing ML(S), even if it's just the training.

In reply to Wildtraks:

Technically, I believe that, in the UK, you do not need any formal qualifications to work professionally in the hills with adults but finding an insurer may be an issue. The problem comes, if/when you have an accident and there is a court case. The court will then as a qualified instructor, normally a guide to review the case and judge if you were sufficiently experienced to be doing the activity and also if your actions were negligent and contributed to the accident. Now, having an ML/MIA does not mean that you cannot be negligent but you are likely to have a better defense on the experience issue. As has been mentioned many times on this forum, there are many really experienced people without qualifications and also many relatively inexperienced people with qualifications but I have generally taken the provision of a qualification as the start of the professional journey in the mountains and I am sure that a potential client will realise that having a certificate shows that you have received training and assessment and reached a certain standard.
I obtained my quals (SPA, ML & IML) after having 40 years experience in the mountains and have never regretted doing it.

In reply to Wildtraks:

Thanks guys defo going for the ML award and then see what happens.