The St John Scotland Mountain Safety Instructor

St John Scotland and Mountaineering Scotland work together to provide valuable mountain skills training for students.

Malcom Airey is the St John Scotland Mountain Safety Instructor and works with university mountaineering clubs, attending the clubs planned weekend meets and passing on invaluable skills and safety training. He is a fully qualified Winter Mountaineering and Climbing Instructor with 20+ years of experience of instructing in the Scottish mountains, having started his journey in a University Mountaineering club himself, back in the day!  

The St John Scotland programme runs in both the autumn (Oct to Dec) and winter (Jan to May) terms, and currently there is funding in place for each student club to have a visit from Malcolm one weekend in each term. The instruction is very generously fully-funded by St John Scotland, so is completely free to the clubs!

Autumn sessions

On the pre-arranged weekend meets, Malcolm will meet the club members at their chosen accommodation on the Friday night to chat through with committee members what type of training the club would like. This can include weather, ratios, transport arrangements and a plan for the 2 days. Often this is discussed by email in the week leading up to the trip.

In the first semester, Malcolm offers mainly 'summer' type training days, often an intro to hillwalking skills for newer club members - navigation, route planning, equipment, weather forecasts, decision making/ group awareness, access rights and responsibilities, dealing with emergencies. On the second day of a meet, the club might wish to have a more scrambling or climbing ropework focussed day at a local crag.  All training is done 'on the hill' with the aim to still have a rewarding day out bagging a peak or two.


Winter sessions

The winter sessions follow the same weekend meet format as the autumn sessions, but the instruction offered is ideally winter focussed and will be conditions dependent. An intro to winter skills day for the less experienced members would normally cover axe and crampon use, route choice on steep ground, emergency ice axe arrest, avalanche awareness and avoidance, other winter-specific hazards, and winterising any existing summer navigation skills. 

Malcolm will also be on hand to help other students on the meet make good, informed decisions about their walking or climbing route for the next day, looking at the weather and avalanche forecast and often with a bit of local knowledge about route conditions in the area.

The Sunday often involves a .winter skills Plus' day for more experienced members, looking at the progression from winter walking into winter mountaineering, use of a rope on grade 1-2 terrain, movement skills, snow anchors, retreating, etc.

On the Saturday evenings in both semesters Malcolm will deliver a lecture on general mountain safety topics. In the autumn this focusses on incident management, with short examples for students to figure out how they would deal with accidents and incidents. In the winter, it is focussed on how to interpret the SAIS avalanche forecasts, and how to plan a safe day using them.

How to arrange a weekend

To arrange a weekend session for your student club with the St John Scotland Mountain Safety Instructor, please email Malcolm Airey

Some student feedback:

Students who have attended meets with the St John Scotland Mountain Safety Instructor have been enthusiastic about the skills learned and the benefits they have gained from the experience.

  • "I feel like I know more about winter climbing and how to be safer. It was good to have hands-on learning because I will never forget it! The instructor was great and we all felt comfortable being led by him even in windy, snowy conditions."
  • "I learned some essential winter and general mountaineering skills that I feel have made me safer and more competent whilst on expeditions."
  • "I took winter more seriously and saw it in a different perspective realising my previous over-confidence as a competent summer climber."
  • "We chatted a lot about the social dynamic of walking in a club group, versus with mates who you know well.  And how the overenthusiasm of some members, and tired members maybe not speaking up, could lead to a group over-stretching themselves and problems later in the day with short dayight etc"

St John Scotland

St John Scotland is a Scottish charity which spends a lot of time and money helping others through its commitment to life-saving and life-enhancing for those in need.

In its mountain rescue capacity it has supported Scottish Mountain Rescue teams for almost 20 years. Most of the support has been in the form of provision of 4x4 vehicles and mountain rescue bases for teams. However, in 2015, in conjunction with Mountaineering Scotland, it started a new initiative called the St John Scotland Mountain Safety Instructor.

In the past young people have unfortunately been at the top of the list of statistics of folk who have been involved in accidents in the mountains.  Because of the slightly higher incidence of Scottish mountain rescue teams going to the aid of young people in the Scottish hills, St John Scotland decided that spending some money on an educational and instructional scheme might overall reduce the mountain rescue call outs and ultimately save lives.