CLICK HERE to view Mountain Leader article from Trail Magazine December 2007

Training as a mountain leader (ML) or Single Pitch Award holder (SPA) is a great way to develop and test your skills. The awards are competence based training and assessment led and is designed to develop group management and technical skills required by a responsible leader / supervisor.
The awards lead to nationally recognised qualifications that are industry standard for anyone wishing to work voluntary - especially (commercially) with those under or over the age of 18 years.
All people intending on working commercially with the public in a mountain or rock climbing setting should consider the following awards.
Summer ML Winter ML and SPA scheme
All schemes begin and continue with;

Personal experience
Pre-requisites! ML scheme candidates are required to have at least 20 quality mountain days – if unsure check with the course director or home nation board secretary. A full breakdown of a QMD is listed in the scheme syllabus notes.
For the SPA scheme you will have 12 months climbing experience and have led at least 15 routes of severe grade.

Registration phase
You need to contact one of the following boards. Select a home nation board that represents the country you live in, for example; if you live in Scotland you contact MLT Scotland to register. They will provide you with the scheme syllabus notes and a unique logbook for recording your personal experience, training and assessment courses.
You can register online by visiting www.mlte.org or by telephoning. There is a registration fee.
Contact either; MLT Scotland 01479 861 248, MLT England 01690 720314, MLT Wales 01690 720 361 and MLT Northern Ireland 028 4372 2158
You can attend a training or assessment course anywhere within the UK regardless of which home nation board you are registered with.

Training course phase
For all ML courses you need to complete a 6 day training course – courses are normally run over six consecutive days. It’s at this point the award syllabus and technical standards are introduced to candidates – training phase is relaxed and extremely informative. For the SPA scheme candidates must attend a 2 day training course.
Candidates receive feedback on a daily basis and will receive an official course training report and logbook endorsement of attendance.

Consolidation phase
Candidates need to consolidate new skills and knowledge put across at training and gain further practical experience on the mountain or crag prior to attending the assessment. The candidate syllabus training and assessment notes will provide strong advice and guidance on what to do prior to attending an assessment course.

Assessment phase
There is a minimum period of three months consolidation prior to undertaking any assessment award course however; there is no shelf life on the training course. If it has been sometime between training and assessment a candidate may consider participating in a weekend refresher course prior to assessment. ML
Assessment is 5 days in duration and is normally completed over five consecutive days. SPA assessment is completed over 2 days. The result will be one of the following; PASS, DEFER or FAIL.