Monday 2nd February 2026, 9:02am
At the end of each month, we take a look back at the work the team has been carrying out on behalf of our members. Read on to hear the latest updates from our CEO and our Access & Conservation, Mountain Safety, ClimbScotland and Member Services & Communications teams...
Our CEO Stuart Younie started the year with a regular catch up with his counterparts at the BMC, Mountaineering Ireland and Mountain Training UKI. All of the organisations are facing similar challenges with the home nation mountaineering bodies looking at increasing new membership particularly from the indoor climbing and hiking/ hillwalking communities. Key topics included the future of the national outdoor centres particularly Tollymore in N Ireland which remains closed, and an update on the review commissioned jointly by Mountaineering Scotland and Mountain Training Scotland on the organisational structure in place in Ireland.
Stuart and Catriona also had a constructive meeting with NatureScot to discuss areas of shared interest including the development of new guidance on nesting birds, It's Up to Us and investment in mountain paths, and the proposed pilot at Cairngorm Mountain to allow limited access from the Ptarmigan to the summit of Cairngorm. NatureScot are also about to launch a new corporate plan which sees a welcome shift back towards re-connecting people with nature from arguably a much narrower focus in the previous plan on tackling biodiversity and delivering net zero.
The Scot Govt Budget delivered some welcome news for sport on the 13th Jan with the announcement of an additional £18m of investment to sportscotland across three main areas, support for SGB's on payroll costs, investment support for community clubs and support for Commonwealth Games Scotland. A second tranche of £20m non-recurring funds will be going to deliver a "summer of sport" celebrating the Commonwealth Games providing a one-off programme of sports activities and holiday programmes. This has been seen as a significant result from the work SGB's have done on the "Running on Empty" campaign and the extensive lobbying of Govt by Scottish Swimming. Stuart has been part of the campaign leadership group representing Mountaineering Scotland on the Exec group of the CEO forum and attended the meetings with the Cabinet Sec for Health and Minister for Sport as part of the campaign.
During the second half of the month Stuart attended the sportscotland inclusive leaders alumni session in Stirling on the 26th where there was an opportunity to share with others on the programme the impact it had on promoting inclusion within sports governing bodies and local authorities / leisure trusts. Stuart also led the submission of a letter of complaint to Eurostar about the ongoing problems relating to the carriage of ice axes and crampons which was sent on behalf of Mountaineering Scotland, the BMC, Mountaineering Ireland and with the support of Protect our Winters UK, the Eagle Ski Club, the Alpine Club and the Austrian Alpine Club UK.
Historic Environment Scotland (HES) recently submitted a planning application for new fencing and signage on the Radical Road, below Salisbury Crags, Edinburgh. The placement of the new fencing and the removal of some of the old fencing would allow climbers access to the South Quarry area for the first time since the Radical Road was closed due to rockfall back in 2018. Mountaineering Scotland submitted a response which you can view here. Whilst we welcomed the prospect of climbers getting back into the quarry, we raised some concerns about some of the details of the application.
HES are also reviewing their climbing permits system, with the intention of reinstating it when access to South Quarry is re-established. Whilst we don’t endorse the use of climbing permits, as we don’t think the practice complies with the terms of the Land Reform (Scotland) Act of 2003, we are working with them to try to ensure that the system presents as minimal a barrier to access and safe practice as possible.
We also recently responded to a planning application submitted by Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS) for a new car park and link path at Craig, Achnashellach. The existing FLS car park on the north side of the A890 at Craig is important to hillwalkers as a safe, off-road place to park before heading to the Munros of Sgùrr Chòinnich and Sgùrr a' Chaorachain, or the Corbetts of Sgùrr na Feartaig and Beinn Tharsuinn, however, it will soon be closed to accommodate upcoming harvesting operations. There are very few alternative places to safely park for the day in the immediate area so we were pleased to see a proposal for a replacement facility but we were concerned about the practicality of the link path. You can view our response here. A few days ago Catriona, met with FLS and Highland Council on site to look at the proposed route and discuss the work required to make the link path viable. She is pleased to report that she’s much more confident that the new path will be fit for purpose.
January for the Mountain Safety Advisor Team kicked off with a wintery bang. Unlike the last couple of years, we have been blessed with plenty of winter in the mountains for great conditions for our winter skills courses, both east and west. Kirsty, Max and Ross then headed up to the Cairngorms for the Student Winter Skills weekend a day early to get a climb in and to check conditions! 60 students from around Scotland then descended on Glenmore Lodge for this annual event that introduces young adults to the joys of winter mountaineering from highly experienced instructors at the National Outdoor Training Centre. This course is heavily subsidised through a combination of grant funding from the Scottish Mountaineering Trust (SMT), A reduced rate from Glenmore Lodge, and support from ourselves at Mountaineering Scotland. So a big thanks to the SMT and Glenmore Lodge.
With only one day’s rest, Kirsty was back out on the mountains, this time in Glencoe running the Women’s Winter Skills course with freelance instructor, Adele Pennington. This is always a very popular course and fills up fast.
Max was then out with freelance instructor, Craig Mckay, running a two-day winter skills course, again in the west, with classic wintery and windy conditions for everyone to experience and learn from. This winter has certainly delivered very real learning opportunities for, not only the physical skills of moving around the mountain, but to also get experience of decision making in avalanche terrain when it matters.
The Met Office Long Range forecast is suggesting February continues to be wintery for Scotland. Good news as we still have plenty of courses to deliver, such as Winter Skills, Intro to Avalanche Awareness as well as new courses for this year – Winter Skills for Backcountry Tourers and an Avalanche Companion Rescue course (using transceivers, shovels and probes).
The Member Services and Communications Team returned after the festive break on 5 January, and it’s been non-stop ever since!
As well as responding to member enquiries, our annual reporting for Sportscotland and planning for the coming financial year, we have been busy preparing for the upcoming Fort William Mountain Festival (13-15 Feb). This year, Mountaineering Scotland will be hosting a Saturday evening session at the festival – Your Hills – and we are delighted to have three very different, but equally inspiring speakers: Anne Butler, President of Mountaineering Scotland and self-professed hill bagging obsessive; Sean Green, aka Grizzly Munro Diaries, who completed the Munros on bike in 2025; and Josh Adeyemi, adventurer, content creator and the founder of the Black Scottish Adventurers group. We’re very excited and hope you’ll be able to join us – tickets are on sale now.
The team have also been working hard on a program on online workshops and webinars for members, which we hope will appeal to a wide range of interests. The first two are now open for booking, with more to come:
Charmaine has been reviewing our member offers and catching up with suppliers to ensure you have plenty to choose from. Charmaine has also been busy getting the bookings set up for our summer Ready to Rock and Mountain Skills courses – Ready to Rock bookings are now open and Mountain Skills courses will be available in February.
Christina has been working on analysing the responses to our 2025 member survey, liaising with several new clubs, and coordinating the setup of a working group consisting of staff and board members to help take us through the Moving to Inclusion framework as an organisation.
Megan continues to create engaging content for our social media channels, and work with our Mountain Safety Group colleagues to deliver the ThinkWINTER campaign. She is also starting to plan the next issue of Scottish Mountaineer – if you’d like to contribute please get in touch!
The ClimbScotland Team have been back in full swing in January!
Heather has been getting planning and comms out to walls about the ClimbScotland Fun Climbing Comp and the qualifiers are now set and underway at 12 walls across Scotland. Qualification will be open until 7th March followed by the final at EICA on the 28th March.
Robert has been busy planning our 2026 Outdoor Climbing Programmes (RealRock and Ready to Rock) which are now live, as well as delivering our Advance Belaying workshops at the Ledge in Inverness and Transition Extreme in Aberdeen. It’s been great to see the popularity and up take for these workshops.
Euan was recently part of the route setting team for the British Bouldering Championships in Manchester at the Depot Manchester, which was attended by 12 Scottish Climbers who were joined by one of our Squad coaches, Michael Bleazard, to support them at the competition. Massive well done to all those competing and great to see Scottish Climbers also making selection to the GB Climbing Boulder Team for 2026. Check out the action from the final here.
Jamie was in Inverness at the Ledge for 2 days of Inclusive Climbing workshops this month. The first was the Disability Inclusion training which was delivered by Sarah Jones from Access Sport. The training was available to anyone who would like to become more confident in disability-inclusive climbing. The workshop was non-technical, and focusses on inclusive culture across every touch point and covered practical skills for inclusive warm-ups, session planning, registrations and governance and accessibility. Lot’s of great feedback from those in attendance and massive thanks to Sarah for making the journey up to Scotland to deliver the training.
Jamie has also been working on the new Child and Adult Protection Policies which are now live on the Mountaineering Scotland Website.
Jack has been busy planning the 2026 squad programme, with the first session of the year kicking off at the start of next month. Jack and Jamie have also been speaking with three times Olympian snowboarder and High Performance Coach Development Consultant, Lesley McKenna who is working with us and sportscotland Institute of Sport in developing a Climber Framework, including conducting a scoping review of the performance pathway in climbing. This will be a key piece of work for the team in 2026! Exciting year ahead!© 03/0 Mountaineering Scotland
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Mountaineering Scotland is a registered trademark of the Mountaineering Council of Scotland Limited
