Kathryn James - Mountain Expertise - guiding & instruction in North Wales

Out on Carreg Wastad at the start of the week. Plas Y Brenin MCI assessment of the problem solving and rescue’s aspect of the syllabi. Preventing problems from occurring through clear communication and good belaying position. Then solving some problems that might occur involving; hoisting, prussiking, escaping the system & abseiling. Making progress safely and efficiently is the key to success on MCI assessment. A great day on the crag, thanks Michael Rainbow for being a great casualty.

AMI Professionals Mountain Training

Some highlights from this weekends Eryri skills weekend.
Multi pitch climbing skills, advanced mountaineering, introduction to climbing and an introduction to mountain skills (navigation and scrambling).

Smiles all round, cooler weather than of late and all the wonderful magic that Eryri offers climbers, mountaineers and walkers, supported and delivered by a team of lovely instructors.
Big thanks to Charlie Chambers- Adelong cathwilson4_mtn_leadingedge Cat Forster Jen Thomas Grace Alsancak-Hay Sophie Holdstock ᴀʟɪᴄᴇ ᴋᴇʀʀ ᴍᴏᴜɴᴛᴀɪɴᴇᴇʀɪɴɢ Emily Coates for delivering the courses.

Thanks to the aretecentre for the accommodation, the perfect place for us to be based and access the best Eryri has to offer.

Rab UK continual support of WAAC is also really appreciated, as is Elouise French work to give everyone a friendly WAAC welcome and for helping out with the intro to climbing.

AMI Professionals Mountain Training Association

Holidays… 🇫🇷🇨🇭

Fun times in the Aravis and Mont Blanc massif.

Mountain Equipment

Busy week on MCI training part 1.
Day 1; Fundamentals of rescues and problem solving
Day 2; Using the climbing wall and single pitch crags as a MCI
Day 3; Multi pitch rope systems; series, parallel, lowering, abseils with safety ropes & stacked abseils
Day 4; Mountaineering 1:1
Day 5; Navigation

A great week of getting the fundamentals dialled, so there’s plenty of bandwidth for part 2. Part 2 focuses on working on multi pitch crags, teaching and mountaineering with 2 people on the end of the rope.

Some of these folks are back soon for part 2, hopefully they’ll be out putting into practise the skills they’ve learnt during part 1 so they are ready for the next course.

After they have completed part 2 they will be MCI trainees. The period between part 1 and 2 is a practise period to develop personal skills.

Thanks .barclay for your expert input through the week and delivering plenty of sound advice and positivity through the rain.

I hope the candidates enjoy the practise period; 1:1 mountaineering, climbing as a 3, navigating and practising rescues.

Adventurous couple of days working for with . Rock climbing, zip wire, abseiling, scrambling and walking all in the Ogwen valley. A pleasure to work with such a friendly well humoured bunch. Polite and fun folks and already pretty talented and familiar with moving around with ropes.

Bonus to ben working alongside Donald and , it’s been a while since that has happened.

Highlights from the 2026 Skye meet.

Big thanks to for their hard work providing the women with great days out. All the seasons in 1 week sums it up.

The shared successes on the hill and crag, cups of tea, tasting of local beer, saunas, wild swims and general love of all things mountain make these weeks special.

A safe space for women to be inspired by women to achieve great things in the hills and on the crag. Thanks for joining all of you, you all make it the special space that it is. See you next time or out there on the hills having your own adventures.

Thanks to .equipment.uk and for helping us keep folks dry and warm on these weeks by providing some top quality kit for us to lend out.

The Croft Bunkhouse near Carbost was a great base, and the new was beautiful, thank you.

Great day on pinnacle ridge, Sgurr nan Gillian. All the seasons in one day.
An excellent adventure with Claire for her final outing on the Skye meet.

equipment.uk

Worth a read...another great article from Claire.

3 days, 3 country’s and now on the Isle of Skye for the 2026 meet.

Cadair Idris for a long desired Paul Williams tick, nice climbing, chilly fingers and toes 🥶 Diolch Cymru

Gouther crag stop off on route, 3 ⭐️⭐️⭐️ classics, steep and burly on The Fang, balance and steady head the name of the game on Bloodhound.

Polldubh in the sun and before midge season…perfect stop off en route after some home made bread, home made chutney and cheddar cheese. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ today on Storm.

Let’s see what adventures the misty Isle brings

instructor training. Opportunity to share ideas, check on good practise and ask lots of questions.
We’ve focused on the key areas of our work as Mountaineering Instructors and Guides. Rock Climbing and mountaineering, with a focus on decision making.
How do we decide what is appropriate to teach?
How do we check for understanding in our students?
How do we keep ourselves safe?
How to we make sure our students understand where they are and what their next steps should be at the end of the course?

All key aspects of the ethos of a course.

working alongside sharing our varied experience and knowledge, and life long passion for training folks in the mountains.