Friday 1st August 2025, 9:52am
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...
There have been a number of changes taking place within sportscotland which Stuart has been working on including a change in our current partnership manger Derek O'Riordan who is going on secondment to UK Sport from Sep to provide maternity cover. Derek has been a great support to the team since taking over as partnership manager and will be handing over to Sarah Birrell for the duration of his secondment. There have also been significant staffing changes across sportscotland and at Glenmore Lodge following a round of voluntary redundancies which are impacting across the organisation as it deals with the challenging financial climate within the public sector. Stuart and Jamie met recently with sportscotland to discuss how this might impact on support to develop the climber performance pathway and our partnership work with Glenmore Lodge. Following a recent meeting with the Cabinet Secretary for Health Neil Gray and Minister for Drugs and Alcohol Policy and Sport, Maree Todd to discuss funding for the Scottish Governing Bodies Stuart has written to the Minister to invite her to Dundonnell to see the work that has been carried out by the "It's Up to Us" campaign.
An important part of our Access & Environment work is reviewing all major renewable energy proposals and responding to ones that we think would have a negative on access to the mountains or the mountain landscape. This month we submitted an objection to the proposed Glen Lednock Wind Farm, in Perth & Kinross. This proposal for 19 turbines on the rolling uplands between Loch Earn and Loch Tay would be clearly visible from Loch Lomond & the Trossachs National Park and many popular hills, including Ben Lawers and Ben Chonzie, as well as the popular climbing crags and bouldering in Glen Lednock itself. You can read our letter of objection here.
We also commented on a proposed woodland creation scheme at Reay Forest Estate. We were pleased to see the landowner had considered all the routes to the surrounding hills and carefully sited gates in the deer fences for walkers heading to summits including Arkle and Ben Stac. You can read our comments in full here.
Our Access & Environment Officer, Catriona Davies, attended a meeting of the Radical Road Working Group in Edinburgh. This group is convened by Historic Environment Scotland and includes representative from the many groups who are unhappy about the closure of this historic route. There is still a lot of detail to be worked out and progress is slow but we’re hopeful a partial reopening of the Radical Road in 2026 will allow climbers to return to the South Quarry area of Salisbury Crags. You can read more background about this case here.
Communications Officer Megan has been making the most of the good weather to get out and about creating content for our digital channels this month including a video about coping with heat and preventing heat exhaustion which you can find on our YouTube channel and some bouldering content to help promote our new Ready to Rock bouldering coached sessions.
Summer often brings issues with responsible access, so it was great to see our post about the decomposition times for various litter items commonly found on hills get shared so widely, with over 130,000 reach across Facebook, Instagram and TikTok helping to spread the #TakItHame message.
The summer mountain skills and climbing courses continue with a few spaces still available in August, September and October. And looking ahead, our popular weather workshops return this November in partnership with the Mountain Weather Information Service (MWIS). Bookings for these are now open, while we prepare to open our winter skills course bookings later in August.
The team has been busy preparing for the next Zoom meeting for Clubs on 6 August and a new webinar for student clubs on 15 September to find out about all the support on offer from Mountaineering Scotland for the year ahead. If you’re on a club committee and haven’t received information about this, please email us. Also looking ahead, planning for the next issue of Scottish Mountaineer magazine has started, so if you have any ideas for winter features or future issues, please get in touch.
And finally, the Member Services & Communications Team is expanding and we are currently recruiting for a Membership & Club Development Officer to help us deliver our membership targets, support Clubs and develop a programme of member engagement opportunities and events. The application deadline is Mon 4 August and full details can be found on the vacancies page of the Mountaineering Scotland website.
This month we are saying goodbye to our amazing Head Setter Lucy Ross. Lucy Joined the ClimbScotland Team in May 2024 and came with great energy and psych for not only route setting but supporting the wider route setting workforce in Scotland and encouraging more females to get involved. In the short time that Lucy has been in the role, she has had a massive positive impact on the development and standard of our route setting for our competitions and academy events. Lucy has also worked with many of the walls across Scotland, engaging and supporting their setting teams. We know Lucy will be greatly missed by all those that had the pleasure of working with her and or climbed her routes and problems. We wish Lucy all the best in her big move to Germany and will hopefully have her back setting for us at future comps, which she is keen to do. We welcomed her replacement, Euan McFayden to the team who is getting settled and planning for the next few comps.
Mountaineering Scotland has backed a major upgrade to the UK’s only international-standard speed climbing wall at Edinburgh International Climbing Arena (EICA: Ratho), with a significant investment in new official IFSC-certified holds. The new equipment – purchased through Mountaineering Scotland’s ClimbScotland initiative, and made possible by reallocated funding from sportscotland – ensures that athletes training at EICA can continue to climb on holds that meet the highest international standards. The upgrade follows close collaboration with the speed climbing community, who use the wall for regular training and competition preparation.
Fun Boulder Competition results are in! An amazing 315 young competitors across Scotland travelled to walls and spent their summer holiday days climbing comp problems over the last 6 weeks. Well done to all the climbers who took part! And a huge thank you to our host walls for making this comp possible. Results are here. The Grand Final will be on 9th August at Bloc 10 in Dundee. We will be in touch with finalists this week with more details.
We have also opened booking for 2 new courses running in August & September:
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Mountaineering Scotland is a registered trademark of the Mountaineering Council of Scotland Limited
