Our Month: Mountaineering Scotland in September 2024

The long-running matter of the closure by Historic Environment Scotland (HES) of the Radical Road in Holyrood Park in Edinburgh, took a more optimistic turn this month. The area has been closed off since 2018 due to the significant risk of rockfall along sections of the route. Mountaineering Scotland have been participating in discussions with HES regarding options for managing the risk of rockfall for climbers.

HES announced this month that “specialist geotechnical engineers have completed a re-assessment of risk and potential mitigating measures in relation to parts of the Radical Road and other areas. HES plans to improve access in spring 2025, where this can be done safely, at the southern end from the Hawse to the northern end of South Quarry. This area includes Hutton’s Section and Hutton’s Rock, together with the quarry in which climbing is permitted.”

There is still an amount of preparatory work to be done, and we have offered assistance to HES with identifying where the routes are in the quarry, so that they can be taken into account when planning safety works.

On windfarms, there are still more proposals coming in at an early stage, where developers scope out the main issues to investigate in a full planning proposal. We comment on viewpoints suitability for assessing the potential visual impact for hillwalkers, and suggest summits where they are lacking in certain angles of view.

Many are clustered around existing operational windfarms and cause little concern now for impacting on walkers views of the landscape, but there are a few significant outliers that are pushing close to mountaineering interests where we will carefully scrutinise the full proposal when it is available for comment. Once such proposal is in the already well-developed windfarm corridor of the M74 - a location where you would not expect much response from us now. But this proposal with its tall turbines lies further to the east and nudges uncomfortably close to Tinto Hill and the surrounding hills. We will be objecting to this one to preserve the area around Tinto as a significant regional recreational resource.

For the Mountain Safety Team September started with hosting the Mountain Safety Group (MSG) meeting at MScot HQ - The Granary, Perth. It was great to get most of the members of the MSG round the same table to discuss all things safety in the mountains. It was also the first opportunity to introduce our new member of the Mountain Safety Advisor team, Max Hunter, who will be working along side me on many of the MSG projects.

As September drew to a close, the sun and warmth made a much needed appearance for the Mountain Skills course held in Glencoe which was run by Kirsty Pallas and myself in glorious surroundings. The following weekend and final weekend of the month saw a return to form with snowfall on the high mountains for the first instalment of the Summer Mountain Leader training course which is delivered on our behalf by Richard Bentley.

The last day of the month I was asked to present at the inaugural England and Wales Mountain Safety Forum. This is a new forum set up in response to the huge and growing demand on Mountain Rescue south of the boarder. Mountaineering Scotland have been helping and advising how the Mountain Safety Group here has worked and developed for the last 15 years. I wish them all the best and look forward to sharing ideas and projects for everyone, no matter which mountains or hills they explore.

ClimbScotland Head Setter Lucy was part of the setting team along with some of the top UK route setters for the British Lead Climbing Championships (BLCC’s) which was held on the 7-8 September at Edinburgh International Climbing Arena. Lucy reported back after the event that she enjoyed being part of the setting team and her route was praised by Olympic climber Molly Thompson Smith, which she was over the moon about. Over the three days of the competition, it was great to see so many familiar faces volunteering at the BLCC’s. Our Talent and Pathway Officer Jack, even MC’d on the live stream alongside GB Climbing speed climber, Matthew Fall. Well done guys! You can check out the livestream here. 

The 2024 Youth Climbing Series (YCS) also kicked off in September with the first Scottish round at The Ledge in Inverness on Saturday 14th September. Around120 competitors took part, which required us adding an additional 30mins to the scramble format to try and help ensure everyone got a fair go on their boulder problems. Massive thank you to the Ledge for hosting and all involved for a great first round to this year’s YCS.

ClimbScotland Development Manager Jamie Smith attended the Association of British Climbing Walls (ABC) Conference in Sheffield along with our Headsetter Lucy. Great to see and chat with the Scottish climbing walls in attendance along with friends from our key national partners at NICAS, Mountain Training, BMC and the ABC. Lot’s of catching up and discussions around future collaboration in developing the sport of indoor climbing.

Round 2 of the Youth Climbing Series took place at Transition Extreme on Saturday 28th September. 117 competitors tied in and stepped up for this roped round at the Aberdeen based venue. Setting team did an amazing job getting all the route set and ready for the competition and thanks again to the amazing volunteers who stepped in to judge and belay at the competition.

Finally, the team also announced the dates, venues and rounds for the 2024-25 Scottish National Bouldering League.